


here comes the rain

by cosmogony (findingkairos)



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BAMF Cloud Strife, Cultural Differences, Fix-It, Galahdian Culture (Final Fantasy XV), Gen, Justice, Post-Advent Children (Compilation of FFVII), Redemption, Religion, Separation of Church and State, Vincent made it in too, Worldbuilding, author has never played either of the FF games but you know what we die like men, slow burn found family, this was supposed to be short, well. except for the traitors.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24118087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/cosmogony
Summary: Exasperated with Bahamut's stubbornness, Ramuh gives up and calls in the experts.Cloud hadn't thought he'd be hired by a god to be the Stormborn, the child of Ramuh that guards and protects Galahd - Ramuh's Favored - during troubled times, but here he is.
Relationships: Cloud Strife & Ramuh, Cloud Strife & Vincent Valentine, Crowe Altius & Libertus Ostium & Nyx Ulric
Comments: 143
Kudos: 802
Collections: Suggested Good Reads





	1. little galahd

**Author's Note:**

> ( _an end to all their suffering_ — my heart’s in a drought, [please give me the rain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlJcnfGD-_U))

Honest to all that ever was and ever would be, Cloud did not know how he got himself into these situations. But the job sounded easy enough, and out of all the new gods that had taken custody of the world it was Ramuh that he could tolerate the best.

Except here Ramuh was now, asking Cloud to take custody of Gaia again, so maybe the new gods hadn’t been doing such a good job with it. Wouldn’t be the first time a mortal man – or who had _been_ a mortal man, anyway – had to pick up after them.

Though this entire ‘go down to Gaia as a god’s messenger’ schtick was new. Cloud squinted, trying to find the pitfall. “That’s it, right? That’s all I have to do?”

Ramuh snorted, and lightning struck some poor tree in the distance. YES. IF YOU COULD CALL THAT ‘ALL.’

All monster elimination quests looked the same. And ferrying people back to a homeland sounded enough like his old delivery service that it would probably be okay. Cloud shoved aside the bitterness that still welled up with thoughts of Nibelheim and sighed. “Fine. But I get to do this my way.”

The old man smiled behind his big white bushy beard. I AM COUNTING ON IT.

The place that Ramuh had dropped him into was filled to the brim with monsters. All of them were ones that he’d never seen before, dark and teeming with shadows. It reminded him of Nibelheim’s shadows. It reminded him of Jenova.

No wonder the old man had called him here. Cloud cocked his hip and thought a little bit. After centuries of wandering the not-dead plain, he’d learned that a bit of thinking could save you a world of trouble later.

But people did need a place to live, and Ramuh had said that this had been the people’s homes before their enemies had coming ripping through. Hm. Extermination first, then he could go looking for them.

The first indication that anything had changed was the storm that overtook Insomnia practically overnight.

The more paranoid called it a Niflheim weapon, a god’s wrath, an ill omen of the upcoming Prince’s Pilgrimage. Nyx woke up to storm rain on his windows and a crack of thunder that rattled his ragged apartment’s walls. Someone was banging on his window soon after, chasing the sounds of children and adults alike running through the apartment hallway.

Nyx practically fell out of his bed in his haste to get to the door. It was Crowe on the other side, and there was hope in her eyes – weary, dragged through hell and back, but still hope.

“I taste it too,” he said before she could say anything. This was no ordinary storm, and any who still wore the beads would recognize it.

Crowe’s face went through several emotions, too fast to pin down, before Libertus was sweeping up behind them and dragging them all out.

The entire immigrant neighborhood of Little Galahd had turned out, faces upturned into the storm. Some were openly weeping; others were kneeling in the street. Nyx thought that was a bit much, even for a Ramuh-sent storm, before he spotted the figure sitting on one of the lower rooftops.

The first thing he thought was, _Wow. That’s a damn big sword_.

The second was, _Wait, is that Ramuh on the roof with him?_

“He hasn’t abandoned us.” It took him a moment to realize that it had come out of his own mouth, choked as it was.

Next to him, Libertus scowled, but the water running down his face wasn’t all raindrops. “About damn time.”

There was only one thing that a man teeming with the Storm’s favor could be. Nyx swallowed and turned his eyes to the storm. Miles and miles and miles away from Galahd, and the Storm had come to find them.

The whispers went through the crowd, from elders to children to disbelieving but painfully hopeful adults. Nyx caught a grandmother struggling to sit out of the corner of his eye and rushed over to help her sit.

There was no sun to dawn on Little Galahd, not with how hard it was raining, but all of them were there, all of those who had escaped Niflheim and become refugees and immigrants in this wretched place, and for now that was all he needed.

Nyx didn’t know what kind of sight they made, a vast majority of the Kingsglaive late to roll call and sopping wet to boot. Captain Drautos was scowling, but then again, he was Lucis to the core. He wouldn’t understand the significance of the Storm that had rolled in this morning unless it got up and bit him.

“Ulric.” Nyx straightened at his name and stared even harder at the space over the captain’s head. “Care to explain why you and three quarters of the Glaive arrived late?”

He couldn’t suppress the giddiness rising in his chest nor the disbelief in his voice as he answered, “The Stormborn’s here, sir.”

Drautos blinked and visibly recalibrated. “Stormborn?”

Libertus piped up, shaking his still dripping hair. “Ramuh’s Chosen, sir. He showed up at Little Galahd earlier this morning.”

The captain had the look on his face that said, quite clearly, he was not paid for this. And as much as he respected the man, right now Nyx could not care less. Even now he was practically buzzing in his skin, the Storm prickling through his veins and rivaling the borrowed king’s magic as a pseudo adrenalin shot.

Quite slowly he asked without a question mark, “Ramuh’s Chosen.”

“Like how Bahamut favors the Lucis kings.” Libertus shrugged, though he didn’t budge out of parade rest. The rest of the Galahdian Glaives nodded along.

“And where might this…Stormborn be right now?”

“Little Galahd, sir. He’s doing…” Libertus paused, and Nyx could sympathize. There was a word in their people’s language which didn’t have a good translation. Blessings wasn’t quite right, nor was healing.

“Service, sir.” It was Crowe that saved them all with the wry twist to her mouth that said she knew just how much of the nuance they were cutting away, but they had to make the Lucians understand. It was a familiar feeling, and Nyx bit the inside of his mouth. “He’s Ramuh’s Chosen, so he does the Storm’s work among the people.”

Drautos harrumphed. “And I don’t suppose he’s brought entry paperwork?”

Now that the captain mentioned it, that was actually a good point. The Stormborn had a shock of blond hair and Storm-blue eyes, but those features were typically Niff. Not that Little Galahd cared – the Stormborn were usually Galahdian in features, but not always. It just seemed like this time Ramuh had picked someone who looked a little more lightning-struck than usual.

“He’s _Ramuh’s Chosen_ , sir,” said a greener Kingsglaive. His tone very clearly conveyed what he thought of his commanding officer not understanding a gods-sent man. “The Fulgurian showed up this morning and sent him to us, and you don’t question neither o’ them.”

“Right.” It was obvious that Drautos did not believe them. But what could they do to convince him? Bring him to meet the Stormborn and let him see for himself that a god’s messenger could not be commanded?

Evidently, that was exactly what Captain Drautos wanted to do. So it was that Nyx and Crowe’s and Libertus’s schedules got shuffled around so that they could escort Captain Drautos to Little Galahd.

When they arrived the Stormborn was sitting with an elder, listening to her recap the last few years for him. More elders and adults lingered around just inside hearing range. Nyx understood the feeling; here was living, breathing proof that Ramuh hadn’t abandoned them.

“He looks like a Niff,” the captain muttered under his breath as they approached, and Nyx could feel rather than hear Libertus start to bristle. He grabbed his brother’s elbow and shook his head as the captain strode ahead, Crowe lingering at his heels. “Hey, you!”

The Stormborn didn’t even look up from his conversation. Captain Drautos scowled at that, but evidently he was wary enough of the massive sword propped up against the back of the Stormborn’s chair that he didn’t go in blades swinging.

But he did lean over the blond man with his arms crossed, unheeding of the elder who was scowling up at him like he’d interrupted dinner. “Where are your papers?”

Nyx could feel the entirety of Little Galahd blink. The Stormborn leaned back in his seat and slowly looked up, one blond brow rising, before he turned away and _ignored Captain Drautos_.

Libertus was cursing even as he and Nyx hurried to catch up, but too late. The captain had reached out to draw up the Stormborn by the front of his shirt, which was hilarious because the latter was a surprisingly shorter man. “I am the Captain of the Kingsglaive, and you will answer to me.”

“If this is the sort of welcome you get, grandmother,” the Stormborn said, “no wonder you call their manners poor.”

“Oh snap,” Crowe murmured beneath her breath. She’d backed up so that they were a trio again, and grimaced apologetically at the Galahdians who had surged up in defense of their Stormborn.

“You are under arrest, Niff,” the captain growled. “I suggest you come quietly.”

“See, I still don’t understand what a Niff is.” Nyx stifled a chuckle as the Stormborn blinked, Storm-eyes wide and innocent. “They’ve been calling me that all week but really, what is it?”

“Are you kidding? With hair that blond there’s no way you could be anything else.”

The Stormborn turned to the grandmother. “Are all Lucians like this?”

Time for him to step in before Little Galahd could lynch the captain. “I apologize,” Nyx said, and stepped forward. He winced at the glares turning from Drautos to him, but everyone knew what it meant that he’d sign up to work as Kingsglaive. “Stormborn, Captain Drautos meant no offense.”

For the first time since he’d seen the man on the roof, the Stormborn’s eyes turned to Nyx. The hair rose on the back of his neck; a shiver went down his spine. Those were not normal people eyes, all glowing like that. Just further proof of what he was, not that Galahd needed any.

Except Lucis did, and Nyx turned to his captain next. “Captain, please put him down. He’s Stormborn, he’s a neutral party, not Niff.”

“And how do you know that?” the captain replied. He had not taken his eyes away from the Stormborn, and even went as far as shaking him a little. Someone in the crowd cursed, in the old tongue. Nyx winced because if Ramuh was listening then the captain would be finding sand in his smalls for the next year. “He showed up out of nowhere, armed, with Niff features. I knew the peace treaty talks were a sham.”

“He came with the Fulgurian,” the grandmother snapped, her braids swinging as she shook her head. “Have more respect.”

“Ah yes, the Fulgurian. Because of course the gods would show and it would not be noticeable from across Lucis.”

“When the old man asked me to help,” the Stormborn said, as calm as any storm was before it cracked, “I said yes. Take it or leave it, kid, but don’t keep me hanging. It’s rude.”

“Kid?” Captain Drautos swung around like an angry voretooth. “ _Kid?_ ”

The grandmother snorted. “He’s the Stormborn, we’re all children to him.”

“Stormborn this, Stormborn that.” The Captain shook him, and for a moment Nyx was spooked enough to grab his knives. The Captain did not do anger. He did cool fury, yes, but not the bone-deep vehemence that was now bleeding into his voice. “Do you have a name, or am I going to be prying that out of you in the Citadel interrogation room?”

Nyx felt the buzz of electricity in the air humming in his teeth before he saw it. But the Stormborn didn’t use the power; just jack-knifed, one knee catching the captain on his chin, the other between his legs, and twisted until he’d flipped them both to the ground.

He came up rolling and squinted at the captain wheezing on the streets of Little Galahd. “My name, for the record, is Cloud Strife. And I don’t need your permission, or whatever, to be doing the job that Ramuh hired me to do.”

That was an interesting way to put a Stormborn’s relationship with their god. At least they had a name to put to a face and title. But it was Crowe who mustered up the courage to step up and ask, ignoring their captain scrambling to his knees with curses to say, “What is that, Stormborn?”

Strife looked at her, and the storm which hadn’t really left after the Fulgurian’s flashy entrance this morning crackled overhead. “To get you all back home, and kill all the monsters that have cropped up on Gaia.”


	2. prophecy wreckers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud visits the Citadel, chats with the king, and is boggled by the summons in the Crystal. Crowe is having the time of her life. Nyx is less enthused, but he's too busy trying to keep Libertus from being offended on their entire culture's and Stormborn's behalf.

“You live like this?”

Nyx wasn’t usually ashamed of Little Galahd, nor of the immigrant refugee housing. It was what it was, and anyway he had everything he needed. Crowe and Libertus were just down the hall, and the apartment building housed grandmothers and children and young adults and the people who’d watched Nyx grow up.

But now, standing in his kitchen and watching the Stormborn drink out of the sole cup in the apartment, Nyx felt something crawl up his throat and settle at the back of his tongue. It tasted like bitterness.

Was this his life now? Following around a man handpicked by the Storm who had been alive longer than twenty elders combined, seeing him judge everything? It would have been less embarrassing to have King Regis standing in his kitchen-slash-living-room-slash-apartment. At least King Regis was just royalty.

“We all do,” Crowe said, because what else was there to say? No, Stormborn, we have legitimate houses and backyards and no need for the evicted to split their belongings among their friends and kin while they looked for a landlord that wouldn’t spit on them just because they weren’t Lucian?

Strife grunted. Then he knocked back his cup of water like it was a shot and put it in the sink. “I can’t move all of you at once, so you’ll have to pick amongst yourselves who goes first.”

That…made no sense. “What?”

“’s just monster extermination.” The Stormborn shrugged, all casual grace. “I got the main island cleared last week, and then Ramuh brought me here.”

Nyx was a bled and trained Kingsglaive, he did not stumble. But he did feel his knees grow weak enough that he would like to stumble. Crowe felt the same if the white-knuckled grip she had on his sole apartment chair was any indication. “ _What_?”

“Anyway, it looks like the sooner y’all can make the move the better.” Strife folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the sink. “Though maybe the grandmothers should stay for last. I cleared out the main island, but the old man says it won’t last until I get rid of the degradation entirely.”

Crowe always had been the quickest of them all. While Nyx was chewing over that information she was tilting her head and asking, “Do you mean the scourge?”

“Scourge, degradation, it’s the same thing. All from Jenova.” The Stormborn clicked his tongue, annoyed on the same level of a man being annoyed at a red light. If only Nyx had his nonchalance. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

And this was why Cloud Strife was the Stormborn, and Nyx was just a refugee who’d sworn himself to the Kingsglaive so that his kin could have a roof over their heads. “You can get rid of the daemons?”

At the same time Crowe asked, “What’s Jenova?”

“Not what, who.” Strife shook his head, his hair flying everywhere. “I’ll explain later. For now, shouldn’t we do something with him?”

He nudged the body on the floor with his boot, which groaned. Nyx would feel bad for the captain if he hadn’t attacked the Stormborn again on the streets of Little Galahd after the first embarrassment and gotten knocked out for his trouble. Strife had just sighed and picked up Drautos to sling him over the shoulder, and there had been a glint to the grandmother’s eye that had kept Nyx from protesting as Strife walked away with the captain as though he were a sack of potatoes.

“We should be getting back to the Citadel.” Crowe unsheathed one of her throwing knives and started flipping it over her fingers, lost in thought. “The Captain shifted our schedules so we could show him around Little Galahd, but we’re expected back around noon.”

Nyx glanced at his watch and cursed. “Half hour to. We gotta hurry or it’s not the Captain that’s gonna be grilling us.”

“The Citadel? That’s where the king is?” Strife cracked his neck and straightened. “Perfect. The old man had a couple of things he wanted me to tell him.”

There was a standoff when they tried to get the Stormborn through security. He was adamant about not leaving his weaponry behind; the Crownsguard were understandably leery about letting in a blond-haired blue-eyed stranger into the Citadel with a giant sword, even though three Kingsglaive vouched for him.

Though maybe that was the fact that Captain Drautos was glaring at Strife when he thought the shorter man wasn’t looking. Eventually it was Libertus who snapped and said, “He’s the _Stormborn_ , we can’t tell him what to do.”

“Stormborn?” The Crownsguard on duty blinked. His partner had one hand to the comm in her ear, no doubt ringing up the Marshal or Lord Amicitia or _someone_ with higher rank.

Crowe didn’t exactly prop one hand up on her hip like she no doubt would’ve out of uniform, but she did glare. The Crownsguard straightened, probably unwittingly; Nyx could sympathize if he wasn’t annoyed at them himself. “Ramuh’s Chosen. You don’t question the Oracle of Tenebrae, do you?”

At least that comparison got them through faster. Nyx raised eyebrows at Crowe during the walk through Citadel halls, ignoring the Crownsguard escort. “The Oracle of Tenebrae, really?”

“It’s still not an exact comparison,” she agreed, and grimaced. “But better than nothing.”

“I don’t know, Lucian King was a pretty apt comparison.”

“Not for a _Stormborn_.” Crowe shook her head like she was trying to get rid of a fly. Nyx could understand the feeling; the wrongness of the lack of words buzzed under his skin, too.

When he looked over, Strife was tilting his head; but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t gawk at the obvious wealth and prestige of the Citadel on display, either. Just walked, eyes forward, pace unyielding, like a soldier.

But Citadel staff gawked as they walked by, worse than Insomnians ever had at Nyx and his braids walking through the city proper. He kept the grimace off his face and tried to shield Strife from the scrutiny as they walked, which was easy enough considering his height.

Marshal Leonis met them halfway, one hand on his katana. “Titus.”

The Captain’s eyebrow twitched as he grunted back, “Leonis.”

“What’s the matter?”

“We’ve got what my Glaive are calling ‘Ramuh’s Chosen’ looking for an audience with the king.”

Marshal Leonis tilted his head and zoned in on the sole stranger in their little group. “That’s you, then?”

The Stormborn squinted, and even though it wasn’t directed at him Nyx straightened. Beside him he could see Crowe and Libertus doing the same. “Who’re you?”

The corner of the marshal’s mouth twitched. “Cor Leonis. Who’re you?”

“Cloud Strife. Are we gonna do the entire song and dance again or are we gonna go see the king?”

“Why do you want to meet the king?”

Strife shrugged. Nyx was getting the feeling that this particular Stormborn just did that a lot. “And why’s it your problem?”

Now it was the Crownsguard that were stiffening. Everyone and their grandmother knew who Cor the Immortal was because he was a bastard that would not stay dead. If the Marshal himself was surprised that the Stormborn didn’t recognize him by name, then it didn’t show on his face. “The King of Insomnia is a busy man. Whatever you have to tell him, I’ll be able to hear in his place.”

“Not unless you have jurisdiction over immigrants too.” Strife tilted his head. “You don’t look SHINRA enough for that.”

Now the Marshal did raise an eyebrow. “SHINRA?”

He got a handwave for his troubles. “Y’know, business people. Politicians or whatever, though that’s a stretch. And the old man was pretty specific about who I’m supposed to tell when I asked him for who had the most authority around here.”

The Captain scowled and made a face at the Marshal. Nyx knew that scowl because it was the same one that Crowe made whenever she was posted at Citadel galas and she caught Nyx’s eye over the crowd and made the face and meant, _See what I have to deal with?_ It was a little unnerving seeing it on Drautos’s face, especially in the middle of the hallway. Surrounded by Crownsguard and with three Glaives watching was not quite an informal atmosphere.

“I’m sure,” Marshal Leonis said cautiously, “that if Ramuh wanted to speak of immigration with the King of Lucis, he did not need to send a proxy.” There was more than a little suspicion in his voice.

Strife snorted at that, ugly and loud. “The old man gave me a monster elimination and courier task, kid, and full rein on how to do it, and I say the easiest way is to talk to your king directly. If you won’t let me, well.”

He shrugged, uncaring of the fact that the Crownsguard and Captain Drautos were bristling now at the hopefully unintentional implied threat. Nyx had to stop himself from reaching for his kukris, eyes darting around, trying to find a way to defuse the situation. But it was Marshal Leonis who zoned in on the part of the answer that Nyx had been curious about since earlier this morning. “Monster elimination?”

“He means the scourge, sir,” Crowe said, because she had a pair that were made of steel.

There were audible blinks. Strife shifted his weight from his left to his right, and almost got a gut full of steel for his trouble.

Libertus stood between him and the twitchy Crownsguard, scowling. “Have more respect,” he spat, and pushed the guard back. He didn’t seem to notice nor care that the rest of the Crownsguard had drawn weaponry on _him_. “He’s _Stormborn_ , didn’t you get that memo yet?”

“Stormborn?” Marshal Leonis asked, voice gone carefully neutral, but at least _he_ hadn’t drawn his weapon yet.

Eventually they got to a receiving hall, and with Strife’s insistence that he would only tell the story once and Crowe’s rapid-fire shortened explanation of what a Stormborn was, the King of Lucis was pulled out of his morning council meeting. “Now,” Marshal Leonis said, and glared. “What do you mean, monster elimination.”

“If you want to get rid of an infection,” Strife said slowly, in the manner of a man speaking with very small words to a very slow audience, “then you burn it out. Not just cut down the symptoms.”

The King paled. His Shield stepped up, one hand on his shoulder, the other wreathed in light. Nyx clenched his fists behind his back and breathed.

“You speak of the prophecy?” King Regis asked, and ah, there it was. The feeling that this was way above his paygrade. Nyx tried desperately to catch Marshal Leonis’s eye to be excused from this meeting, but the man scowled and shook his head no. Really, why did they need him here when Crowe and Libertus had cultural translator down pat?

At least he wasn’t the only one suffering. Nyx saw Captain Drautos scowling out of the corner of his eye and felt a momentary pang of sympathy.

“If you mean the prophecy that’s got Ramuh the most annoyed I’ve seen him, then yeah,” Strife snorted. “It’ll take a little while because your land is wide and I’ll be going around on Fenrir, but in the meantime, I’ll be fulfilling the other half of the job.”

Lord Amicitia scowled. “Which is?”

“What else?” Strife jerked a thumb over his shoulder; Nyx straightened at the sudden attention, though Crowe and Libertus had already been ramrod straight to begin with. “Ramuh wants the Galahdians back in Galahd.”

Captain Drautos looked like he’d just bit into something sour when he demanded, “Why the Galahdians?”

“Ramuh got impatient waiting for your Lucian King to get his ass in gear.” Strife turned to King Regis directly, who seemed more boggled than offended by the language. “They’re the only ones who remember him properly still, so of course he’s impatient for them to come back.”

There was an ominous creaking. Nyx looked around for the source and was surprised to see Captain Drautos clenching his hand hard enough for his gloves to warp. All day, the captain had been on edge, more than usual. Had something happened to the outbound patrols?

He filed away the observation for later and returned his attention to the show. Crowe caught his eye over the heads of the tiny council and mouthed, _He remembered_.

It hummed like lightning and thunder through his veins, in his teeth. They remembered Ramuh, and Ramuh remembered them. It was a good feeling.

“So, immigration.” Strife hummed a little. “’cept I won’t be able to bring everyone back with me at once – even I know that – so we’re gonna have to do that in stages. It’ll probably be slow going until I finish the monster elimination part of the job. Hopefully it won’t take me too long to find the Jenova remnants on your planet – or maybe it’s not Jenova. The monsters at Galahd looked really similar, though.”

It hurt, to be told that there were still daemons in their homeland. Nyx bit his tongue and tried to keep still.

“You think you can do it by yourself?” That was Lord Amicitia, plainly suspicious of the stranger in their midst, even after three Glaives vouching that he was a messenger of the gods.

“What, like it’s hard?” Strife flicked his wrist, and his bracelet glowed. There was a fireball in his hand, cupped, not like the fire created by the King’s magic. Like if there were a tiny campfire built in the palm of his hand and the tinder set on fire. Curious that he chose to use fire and not lightning to demonstrate power, but what did Nyx know? Maybe the lightning would just get Ramuh interested in the Stormborn’s conversation. “Sometimes things just need a good Firaga.”

All the Lucians were staring at the fireball in the Stormborn’s hand. The King had that particularly blank look on his face that he usually reserved for situations of paradigm-shifting news. Nyx cleared his throat and shifted on his feet, and when the King turned his attention to him he said, “He’s Ramuh’s Chosen, sir. Means he’s got magic right from the Fulgurian.”

“Right,” said Marshal Leonis, as King Regis blinked once. “So you said.”

Strife tilted his head. Something flitted across his face. “Wait, do you want a _demonstration_?”

He asked it like it was the most ludicrous thing he’d ever heard. Nyx agreed with him. The living Avatar of Ramuh was standing before them, breathing and deigning to answer their questions when he had every right to just do what needed to be done, and they wanted him to stop doing his job so they could satisfy their curiosity?

“Perhaps,” King Regis said, “it would be best to continue this conversation before the Crystal.”

“Crystal?”

“The slumbering place of Bahamut,” Lord Amicitia replied, and ah, there was the Stormborn’s scowl.

“Great,” he muttered as they all got ready to move. “So that’s where that big lout went.”

“Oh my god.” Cloud pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to stave off the impending headache. “That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard.”

The image of Bahamut sputtered. To the side, the king looked in shock, the stuck-up prick looked marginally better, and the only man who’d actually had some brain between his ears choked.

Cloud ignored them all, because seriously? “You want someone’s sacrifice to cleanse a degradation? What are you, stupid? Did you ever get peer review for this sort of thing? Even I know that you should be getting that, and I was infantry, not even a scientist.”

THEN WHAT, the once a summon and now apparently a god said, voice ringing in the Crystal chamber, DO YOU PROPOSE.

“Burn it out, of course. If that fails, I’ve still got some of Aerith’s Great Gospel on me.”

AH, THE FABLED HEALING RAIN. Bahamut did not have visible eyes with which to squint, but the feeling was there. Not that it worked on Cloud. YOU THINK THAT WILL BE ENOUGH?

“It worked for Jenova,” he said very slowly. The last he remembered of the summon, Bahamut hadn’t been this slow. Stubborn, maybe, but not slow on the uptake. “It’ll work for this.”

There was a staring contest. Cloud frowned and dug in his heels. He’d lived a long time; this was nothing.

VERY WELL. Bahamut swung around to look at King Regis, who had a white-knuckle grip on his cane. THE PROPHECY IS…SUSPENDED, FOR NOW. IF THE CHOSEN OF RAMUH SUCCEEDS IN HIS TASK, THEN THERE WILL BE NO BURDEN FOR THE KING OF STONE TO SHOULDER.

Cloud snorted into the silence. “Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence. Now if that’s all, I’m gonna get going.”

He was walking out the double doors before anyone could say anything. Someone shouted after him, probably trying to get his attention, but eh. Suspending the prophecy hadn’t been in the terms that the old man had listed, but at least it would make the rest of it easier. Hopefully. Probably.

How much of the no good, very bad, not scientifically peer reviewed prophecy had the Lucian King known about, anyway?

“Young man,” Lord Amicitia said as the doors to the Crystal’s chamber closed behind them, “you are quite brave.”

Lord Amicitia said _brave_ like he meant _reckless_. But young man? Really?

At least the Stormborn didn’t seem too offended. He just snorted and shook his head. “I ain’t young, kid.”

“Kid?” quoted Marshal Leonis. He looked as impassive as ever. Nyx wished he had half of the Immortal’s current placid calm.

“According to Little Galahd,” grumbled Captain Drautos, who’d stood outside the Crystal chamber with the rest of them and had paced like a trapped coeurl, “we’re all children to him.”

Nyx was sort of still reeling over the fact that the King had opened the Crystal’s chamber to non-Royals or Retinue. But then again Strife was Stormborn; it was only fair. He shared a wide-eyed look with Libertus, who made the wide-eyes back. Crowe just worked her jaw like she was trying to pop the pressure in her ears.

Damn, they were just Galahdian kids. Anyone from Little Galahd could’ve been standing there as witness and follower for the Stormborn; the grandmothers probably would’ve been a better choice.

“I apologize,” King Regis said to Strife. “I would invite you to lunch so that we might discuss things further, but my schedule is immovable today for the Niflheim treaty talks.”

Strife shrugged as if the Lucian King apologizing time for not being able to make time for a Stormborn was of no consequence. “That’s fine. But look into that thing I asked, would you? The old man was quite annoyed.”

The Stormborn didn’t wait for confirmation; he just walked away, unhurriedly. Presumably to a courtyard or something if the crackle of thunder overhead was any indication. Lord Amiticia snarled, presumably at the slight, but King Regis just tipped his head to Marshal Leonis who nodded and walked in pursuit of the Stormborn. Half the Crownsguard who’d lingered outside the Crystal chamber doors and given the Glaives the stink-eye went with him.

Then King Regis turned to them. “Nyx Ulric. Crowe Altius. Libertus Ostium.”

Shit. Nyx fell into parade rest and saw his brethren do the same. “Sir?”

“Your new assignment is to accompany the…Stormborn around Insomnia, especially if he insists on staying in the city.” There was a calculating gleam to his eye now. No doubt he was wondering how he could spin this for the benefit of Insomnia. Once a leader of men, always a leader of men. “And I would appreciate it if you could write up a brief for me about what a Stormborn is, how they come to be, their place in your legends. Anything and everything that you know.”

Nyx chewed over that for a moment. “Sir,” Crowe said eventually into the increasingly stilted silence. “I can tell you now, there are…some things that won’t translate well. Just as a heads up.”

“Anything you can give me will be appreciated, Sir Altius.” King Regis did not smile at her, but the emotion was writ plainly on his face. “I’ve not heard of the Stormborn before, you see, so I admit that I am curious.”

Right, because Insomnians worshipped the Bladekeeper first – for a given definition of worship, anyway. All Nyx saw in the Crown Citizenry was that they went to Bahamut’s festivals and gave him more attention than the rest of the Hexathon, but the church and temple were more landmarks than hallowed ground.

Nyx stepped forward. “We’ll try our best, sir,” he offered, and tapped his fist to his chest.

“That’s all I can ask. Dismissed. Titus, with me.”

The Captain lumbered after the King, Lord Amicitia and the rest of the Crownsguard with him, and Nyx watched them go.

There was momentary silence. Nyx glimpsed out the window and felt something unwinding in the vicinity of his ribs at the sight of rain, clean and pouring.

“Fuck,” said Libertus, and then grunted as Crowe no doubt elbowed him in the gut. “What?”

“We should follow after,” Crowe pointed out, but there was no missing the subtle bouncing on her feet. Evidently Nyx wasn’t the only one eager to get back out into the rain.

They found the Stormborn in the middle of it, along with Ramuh and a shocked cadre of Crownsguard. Marshal Leonis was the only one with a poker face and giving away absolutely nothing, though one hand was filled with his katana.

Even Strife seemed annoyed, running his hand through his hair and tugging at the ends. He didn’t have the braids, which felt wrong. No doubt the grandmothers had seen it, though, so maybe it was only a matter of time before he’d have the beads, collected from the Clan representatives by the elders to present to their Stormborn.

Or maybe Ramuh could give him the first. The Stormsender dropped it on the Stormborn’s head and chuckled when the man scowled as he snatched at the bead, and the sound echoed in the rumble of thunder overhead.

I’LL LEAVE YOU TO IT, Ramuh said, and then was gone as suddenly as he’d appeared.

Crowe took one look at the Stormborn, all drowned hair or no, and then back at the Crownsguard – and cackled. “We told you he’s the Stormborn.”

“I,” said the Marshal, soaked through to the bone with holy rain dripping off his beard, “am beginning to understand.”


	3. new homes, old bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more Cloud learns about the circumstances around this job, the less he’s impressed. Meanwhile, the rest of the world plays catch-up.

“What’s this talk of a peace treaty?”

Nyx turned slowly to look at the Stormborn, who was sprawled on the floor of the Kingsglaive’s rec room and doing weapons maintenance. At least there was no one else boggling at them. “Did Ramuh not tell you?”

He got a shrug. “The old man was just checking in ‘cause apparently Bahamut started telling him off in the Astral realm, or something. Then something about how he’d leave me to do the job my way and wishing me luck with the Lucians?”

Considering Marshal Leonis had followed them all to the rec room and stayed to stare for a moment at Strife’s mechanical disassembly and cleaning of his apparently _six_ different swords all jig-sawed into one large monstrosity, Nyx didn’t think that the Stormborn would need something as fickle as _luck_.

“Nyx, stop gawking and do your job!” Crowe called over from where she and Libs were arguing over translations, and Nyx did the reasonable thing: he flipped her the bird. “Oh don’t be like that, you think I _want_ to be arguing over fucking titles right now?”

“Fuck, _fine_.” Nyx was not retreating, thank you, and it was definitely not because he was afraid of being looped into that headache. “Lord Stormborn, if I may?”

“I’m no one’s lord,” the Stormborn replied automatically, and Nyx grimaced. “But fine. Talk while I’m working then. What’s the situation?”

It really should be one of the others doing this because Nyx was a soldier, not a strategist, but they were stuck in the rec room until that brief made it into the king’s hands. He still straightened and put his hands on his knees before giving his report.

Through it all, Strife continued his weapons maintenance. He was thorough about it, giving each sub-blade of his larger sword the care that they deserved. Most of them were longer than his own kukris, and yet Strife handled them like they were kitchen knives. Very long and important kitchen knives, sure, but he was as nonchalant with them as any good soldier was with their weapons.

Not just any Stormborn, then. Fitting for a Galahd that wasn’t at home shores. At the end of it all Strife just nodded and started slotting the pieces of his sword back together. “So Niflheim actively uses the monsters as part of their attack strategy?”

“Yeah. Them and these big hulking beasts – they have to be several stories tall, all breathing fire. If the size won’t tip you off then the pauldrons on the shoulders will.” Nyx had tangled with them on the last outbound patrol, and he wasn’t looking forward to doing so again.

Strife tilted his head at his weapon before he looked up. There was an actual emotion on his face. “Two arms, two legs, somewhat silver but mostly grey?”

Okay, he’d given the man the main points, but the color? “Yes…?”

“Damn it.” Strife thudded the last blade into place with a loud clatter. “Diamond Weapon is still kicking around? I thought we put him to rest for good.”

Wait, what? “You know what those _are_?” The blood was rushing loudly in his ears. None of them had any idea what those massive things were, just that Niflheim dropped them and they left devastation in their wake. “Better question, _how_? Niflheim just debuted them a few weeks ago.”

“If your thing is the same thing as my thing, then they’ve been around for a while.” Strife started putting his maintenance gear away, one careful movement at a time, but Nyx wasn’t fooled. That was the carefulness of a man knowing how fragile his control was at the moment, but damn, it was impressive the Stormborn’s hands weren’t shaking, what with the amount of tension in that low voice. “Do you have any pictures?”

Nyx didn’t, but he knew who might. He turned to yell across the room to be heard over the storm rain on the roofings. “Yo, Crowe! Did you get any pictures of the new Niff weapons that Libs almost got flattened by?”

“Don’t talk to me unless you’ve got suggestions for the brief,” Crowe yelled back, so apparently not. Nyx shrugged and gave the Stormborn a _what can you do_ expression, though it gutted him to do so. He ignored Libs’s offended yelling back.

Thank Ramuh, the man only grunted. Nyx didn’t know what he would have done if he’d pulled a disappointed face like the grandmothers did when his kin failed to deliver. “Apparently not. We’ll try and snap some for you the next time that we get sent out against building-sized monsters.”

“Don’t bother; I’ll find out soon enough.” Strife stowed the last of his cleaning kit away and made it disappear into one of his many pants pockets. “But tell me, Ulric. What do you fight for?”

Nyx blinked. The answer was easy, drilled into him with military precision. “For Hearth and Home.”

Strife tilted his head. He could be mistaken for a chocobo if he weren’t so damn short. “Try again. What do you fight for?”

He had to swallow down the lump in his throat. “To go home.” He could still see the sea, still hear the thunder rumbling overhead. The promise of rain on his tongue when he breathed. But more than that… “For my sister.”

The Stormborn paused, visibly working his jaw. When he looked up, Nyx did his best not to flinch away from the glowing eyes.

“Keep that fire,” Strife said eventually, and got to his feet. “Don’t forget it.” There was an exhausted quality to his voice.

Then he sighed and stretched, hands linked and raised over his head, and there were a series of popping noises that made Nyx’s spine tingle in sympathy. “Well, that’s done. Time for step two I suppose.”

Crowe made a noise in the back of her throat. She was leaning against the rec room desk now, watching over Libs’s shoulder as he finger-typed on the sole typewriter available. “Which is?”

“Tracking down the source of the degradation.” Strife smiled, and it was as predatory as any coeurl’s back home. “It sounds like these Niffs of yours are fielding Diamond Weapons, so they’re a good place to start as any.”

Four hours and a council meeting about peace treaty talks that were stalling later, Cor needed a drink. Alas, there was still one more meeting to go.

“They claim he’s akin to the Oracle of Tenebrae,” Regis pointed out. He could try to conceal the confusion all he’d like, but there were only him, Cor, Clarus, and Titus in the room now. They’d known him for too long to be blinded by the ‘mature king’ routine.

“But why _now_?” Clarus was pacing. “Shiva would make sense, she’s patron to Tenebrae and the Oracle is the one they’re offering in marriage. Leviathan, a distant maybe – the marriage is in Altissia. But the Fulgurian? The _Lawkeeper_?”

“Glaives Altius and Ostium provided a brief.” Cor tapped at the one-page document that had gone through the wringer even after the typewriter that made it legible.

All Cor got was a grumble and a dismissive hand-wave; he swallowed down the ire. “I asked Horatia,” Clarus was saying, which, fair. If anyone would know the depths of the Citadel’s library, then it would be the Royal Archivist. “The only mentions we have of Ramuh choosing a Hand of Judgement is the Arbiter, back in the Rogue Queen’s times.”

“Except they don’t call their Ramuh’s Chosen an Arbiter.” And that was Titus. Cor had never really seen eye-to-eye with him on many matters, but this had his feathers ruffled to an unprecedented level that Cor had ever seen. “Whatever he is, he’s allied closely with Galahd.”

Ah. That would probably do it. Titus had been one of the most vocal when Regis had pulled the Wall back to Insomnia, though he hadn’t left them over it like Cid and Weskham had.

“But is that such a bad thing?” Regis asked, and smiled when Titus reared like he’d been taunted. “Galahd is a part of Lucis that the Glaive and all the refugees are eager to see restored. The Arbiter will fight harder for the sake of a people in visible need than for people who need nothing.”

“Isn’t that the entire point of why you took them for the Glaive?” Cor asked dryly, and stifled a smile when Titus scowled at him. “You poached them for your command, Titus, don’t give me that look.”

“Not my fault that Galahd had a higher than average compatibility with the King’s magic.” Titus ran a hand through his hair. He hadn’t been this visibly agitated since the attack on Tenebrae. It probably had to do with the peace talks and the new weapons that Niflheim had just unveiled.

Still. “I could still use men and women of their caliber in the Crownsguard,” Cor shot back, because this at least was a familiar dance.

Regis held up a hand to forestall the sniping that Titus was gearing up for. Damn; it was always fun to rile up the man. But all Regis said was, “Where is the man now?” and that, at least, Cor had an answer for.

Titus beat him to it. “Little Galahd. He’s doing more of what the Glaives are calling ‘Service.’” Cor could practically hear the quotes around the word. “According to the men I’ve got tailing them, Strife is just going around the ghettos and speaking with the families there.”

“Speaking with them?” Clarus stopped his pacing and turned. “ _Just_ speaking?”

“He’s not drawn his sword,” Cor drawled. Security footage of the Glaive rec room showed Strife disassembling that large sword on his back into several, and he had half a mind to track him down to pick his brain about that weapon. “But I don’t think it’s the level of speaking, per se. It’s more of what Queen Sylva did with Tenebrae on her tours.”

There was a moment of silence in remembrance, automatic and reflexive. Regis scrubbed a hand over his face afterwards. “Which lines up with the brief.”

He sounded exhausted. Cor glanced around the room and came to a decision. “I do have some preliminary good news.”

“Do tell,” Clarus drawled, as he came up to Regis’s shoulder and squeezed. “Though it’ll have to be mighty indeed to qualify as good news today.”

Cor understood the feeling; good news on a day they’d been told the prophecy hanging over Noctis’s head had been suspended was hard to match. But he felt fairly confident in this and let it seep into his voice when he said, “Our holy visitor has seen the new Niff weapons before. He called it Diamond Weapon.”

Which was an interesting name – there wasn’t anything diamond or even diamond-colored on the hulking brutes – and another point of interest to grill the Arbiter on, when Cor saw him next.

Titus stepped forward, the fire back in his eye. “Did he mention any weaknesses? Any intel?”

“Glaive Ulric says he asked, and quote, if ‘Diamond Weapon is still kicking around.’”

“Which implies that he’s fought something similar,” Clarus says slowly, “or that they’re not a new weapon at all.”

Regis straightened beneath Clarus’s hand and nodded to Titus. “Scrape up everything we’ve got on the new Niff weapon and give it to the posted Glaives for the Arbiter. Clarus, ask Horatia to look in the historical archives for a description – she has the clearance for the field reports and the archives both. If the Glaives’s brief holds true, then both this ‘Diamond Weapon’ and the current Arbiter must have fought long ago.”

King Regis didn’t have any instructions for Cor, but he could read his longtime friend and sometimes king’s expression well enough. “Dunno if I can fit in a spar with the man before he leaves,” Cor grunted, “but I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask of you,” Regis answered wryly, and then smirked. Cor did not trust that smirk and had about-faced to leave the room when he heard behind him, “Maybe you’ll have better luck than you did at the Tempering Grounds!”

Flipping the bird over his shoulder as he left was not professional, but damn it, Cor was the Marshal of the Crownsguard. The position had to be good for _some_ thing.

Gentiana was disturbed.

Or maybe disturbed wasn’t the right word. But there was definitely something that was bothering the Messenger. She said nothing of it, continued to provide quiet and soothing advice in the face of the arranged marriage doomed to failure, but Gentiana had stayed by her side for years.

And divine the Messenger might be, but even the low thrum of her power was not enough to drown out the rumble that had taken up residence in the back of Luna’s head. There was only one Astral that did not sleep, but Ramuh had no Messengers nor stake in the world at present. There was no reason for the Storm to ring in her ears when she tried to go to bed.

Not that it mattered. Luna had lived under the weight of the Prophecy for years, and both she and King Regis knew that the time was drawing ever near. Perhaps Ramuh’s surge in activity was a good sign, one of his increasing interest in present day mortal affairs. It would make her job easier come the Covenants.

Perhaps Umbra wouldn’t mind delivering a letter to Noctis. Luna would need to pen it today so it could arrive before he left for his Pilgrimage, but she had yet to reply to the last one from him one anyway. If she was quick about it Umbra could depart before sundown.

It was only a matter of time before Niflheim and Lucis wrapped up the details, and then the time for Prophecy would be upon them.

No matter how badly Strife wanted to strike out past the Wall, he was sidetracked in Little Galahd. Grandmothers stopped him in the street to chat; huntsmen and warriors who had found other occupations in the city asked him for his opinion.

He treated the Matriarchs with respect when they handed him things and stopped to give advice on the craftswork that Nyx’s people had picked up as a source of income. But what had most people looking away was when Strife flicked his hand and the green of spring hovered around him.

Nyx looked away too when Strife spoke softly to Arndt and fixed up the fractured ankle none of them had been able to take him to a proper doctor for. He met Crowe’s eyes instead, and Libs’s next to her. His brother had that particular expression that usually meant _You seeing this shit?_

No, he was not, because then they all had plausible deniability for the miraculous healing. Arndt’s mother was blinking rapidly, but Annelie was a strong woman. Nyx glared until Libs coughed and closed his eyes entirely.

But eventually they made it to their destination, and Crowe did not hesitate to get them started. Their drinks had just arrived – bottled beer for Crowe and Strife, Galahdian herbal liquor for Nyx and Libs – and Strife had taken a sip when Crowe asked, “So before you were called to be Stormborn, were you royalty?”

Strife choked, and for a moment Nyx was afraid that Ramuh would descend from the heavens himself to smite them all. But the man made a quick recovery, so there’d be no divine lightning tonight.

“What? Hell no.” Strife swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and glared at Crowe. “I’m from Nibelheim – remote village in the mountains. We didn’t have anything like kings.”

Libertus practically lit up. “So you’re like us then – country boys, born and bred. I _knew_ it!”

Approving nods went around the bar. Now that they were off duty they could finally mingle among Little Galahd, and good riddance for it too. Nyx took a sip of his drink and sprawled a little more bonelessly over the back of the bench.

But he could see where the royalty question had come from. Even now Strife was holding the attention of the people in the room, though he was doing his damn best to ignore it past the cursory glance-over of the patrons of the bar. There was a particular way he held himself, and it took him a moment to realize what it reminded him of.

The Marshal of the Crownsguard and Immortal of Lucis, Cor Leonis. Which was a reassuring comparison, because King Regis was a great man and all, but he was a leader of men and that wasn’t what Galahd needed right now. Trust Ramuh to choose well again for Galahd’s Stormborn.

Strife hadn’t even asked questions when the grandmothers tracked them down one by one and pressed a bead into his hands. He hadn’t done more than hold them and stare yet, but Crowe was pretty damned determined to braid them into his hair. Nyx recognized the look.

He could understand the urge. But it wasn’t his place – braids were sacred, even for Stormborn, and it really should have been the Stormborn’s family or close kin that did them. But the one question Libs had asked had shut down the man to a level not even the Citadel had, and Nyx had quietly spread the word to Little Galahd afterwards that they weren’t to ask after Cloud Strife’s family.

“Why haven’t you put ‘em in your hair yet?”

Or they could be like Crowe and stab the voretooth in the face. Nyx dropped his forehead to the booth’s wooden table and groaned.

Above his head and beyond the reassuring darkness he heard Strife asking, “Put what in my hair?”

There was a definite slur to the end of Crowe’s words when she said, “The beads, y’know? In your hair?” She was definitely buzzed. “Wait, shit, did Ramuh not tell you that either?”

“No wonder you looked so confused,” Nyx’s brother said. Liquid courage indeed, but then again a Stormborn was Galahdian, no matter where Ramuh had picked them up from. And he seemed pretty chill so far; Nyx didn’t think Strife would go around smiting them for disrespect.

Which made the royal family lines the outliers, he thought as he took another swig. Who else insisted on this much formality for a family and their heirs? The grandmothers and matriarchs earned their places in Galahd.

“Oh,” Strife was saying, “so that’s why you have braids in your hair.”

“Yeah, so you gotta put ‘em in too, okay? Cause otherwise,” and here Crowe paused to gather her words, but she wasn’t interrupted by the rest of the bar. They hadn’t gotten deathly silent, but it was close. “These Lucians can’t tell you aren’t theirs.”

Nyx rolled his head on the table to see and frowned. Ah, fuck. The rest of the bar was staring. He glared until they went back to their own business, but there was no way that they weren’t all eavesdropping.

Meddlers, the lot of them, he decided, and took another swig.

At least Strife still didn’t sound pissed, just some kind of…amused? Ish? Hopefully amused. “And I’m Galahd’s, then?”

“Yeah!”

“…Well, it _was_ the old man that brought me here.”

“See, there it is!” Nyx _knew_ that tone, he could just imagine the finger Libs was pointing now. “You call Ramuh the old man! You see any of those lily-livered Lucians doin’ that?”

Okay, that was enough. Nyx stepped on his brother’s foot and raised his head without looking at the wheezing. “Please forgive him,” he said into the Stormborn’s very blue eyes. “The Lucians are good people, really. They took us in after the invasion.”

“But Libertus ain’t _wrong_ ,” Crowe said, and dropped her weight onto his shoulder. Nyx did not even flinch because he was the older brother in this relationship and he was used to these antics by now, damn it. “So you gotta put in those braids, ‘kay? Since you don’t got family here to do it for you I can do it, or one of the grandmothers can.”

Strife shrugged and took another sip of his beer. Nyx squinted, cause how many times had the man shrugged today? Ten times? More than?

The words were out of his mouth before he realized: “Why do you shrug so much?”

“A friend told me once I should emote more,” Strife replied. His voice was bland, and it took a moment for the sarcasm to register. But damn, he was shrugging with a naked blade holstered on his back. He could hear his mother now: _At least get a damn scabbard!_

“You can do it,” Strife added casually, turning to Crowe. And even though she’d been the one to suggest it, Crowe choked.

Nyx almost fell out of his chair with how hard he was laughing, and Libs was no better. But when he looked up with tears in his eyes he saw something that made him choke up too, though it had nothing to do with alcohol going down the wrong pipe: Crowe, doing her very best to braid the braids he’d taught her, the ones for family and clan and warrior and Galahd.

Family’s bead was Ramuh’s of course – it was only fair, because how else was the Stormborn supposed to be neutral? But the rest of them were from the hands of the Clans’s own matriarchs, and Nyx swallowed hard when he saw the Clan Ulric bead tipping the warrior’s braid tucked behind Strife’s ear.

The bar had gone straight past silence and onto the hallowed quiet before the Storm. Libs shared a look with Nyx, but across the room he could see the recognition and faith reflected in their eyes. The bar didn’t hold the gravitas of a full Welcoming Rite, but there was a reason Nyx had picked this one to sit Strife down in after the chaos that had been his return to Little Galahd.

The indisputable queen of the bar and matriarch of the largest surviving Clan of Galahd just nodded, and Crowe blushed when she caught her looking their way.

But soon Crowe was done, and when Strife lifted a hand to touch the new braids framing his face, Nyx raised his cup in a toast. “Either way, welcome to the Clans, Stormborn.” The blood was rushing in his ears again, the warm fuzziness of the alcohol burned away for this. He looked Strife in the eye. “Aren’t you glad you’re not the youngest adopted anymore, Crowe?”

“Oh fuck off, Nyx.” Crowe jabbed him in the ribs with a sharp elbow, but Strife was staring now, at them with their raised drinks, at the rest of the bar with their toasts and their bows and their fists raised to hearts. Some of the older warriors that had mentored Nyx was weeping. Some of the younger ones looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and no doubt eager to see the might of Ramuh’s Hand.

The Matriarch behind the bar was smiling, sweet and sharp. Next to her, Arndt was holding hands with his mother, standing on his own two feet.

“I was hired,” Strife said at last. He seemed bewildered, touching the family braid and Ramuh’s bead still.

“Too bad, you’ve been adopted,” Crowe muttered, and toasted him with her beer bottle too.

“You’re calling off the invasion?”

 _“You’re the one who called about the appearance of this…Arbiter.”_ The voice was smooth and oily as always, and he scowled.

“I thought you’d appreciate the heads up. I didn’t think you’d be giving up the opening we planned and manipulated for just for this.”

The man on the other end practically purred; typical. _“Oh, I won’t be. The peace talks will continue, and so will the surprise we have planned. I’m just making sure we’re not too hasty with this new player on the field; you’d hate for that to happen, wouldn’t you, my good General?”_

He didn’t need the tacit reminder of where his loyalties lay. As long as Niflheim kept their promise, he didn’t care about the Crown City and their nobles and their greed.

“Don’t be sloppy with the dropships,” he said instead, and bit down on his sigh when there was mocking laughter on the line. “The King will send a Glaive to try and evacuate the Oracle, but it’ll be intercepted. I’ve held up my end of the bargain.”

_“And I will mine. Do have a good day, General. I’ll see you soon.”_

The call disconnected. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and took a moment to stare at the phone.

Then he dropped it into his wastebasket and set the entire thing on fire. All these years of keeping his head down, and everything was finally coming to fruition. Soon there would be no monarchy, keeping their Wall to themselves. Soon the stuck-up pricks in the Crown City would know the intricacies of the war they had been left naively unaware of while the rest of Lucis had been torn to shreds.

For Hearth and Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horatia (Latin, “good eyesight”)  
> Arndt (German, “eagle power”)  
> Annelie (German, “favor; grace” or “God is my oath”)


	4. something like that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are set in motion. Cloud is just glad that his equipment still works here in the new world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently the fic has been doing the thing where it says I updated when I'm saving drafts to test for formatting? Sorry about that, folks. 
> 
> In other news, I was intending on updating this fic once a week, but the muse is strong and I'm enjoying the ride so far. We'll see how far and fast this freight train will go.

The Stormborn spent the night on the roof. The _roof_.

Crowe could practically hear the matriarchs crying about hospitality, but Strife was insistent. Something about being ready to move out when needed, and four walls being more odd than it was comforting. Admittedly she didn’t understand all of it but she understood enough.

The summons to the Citadel came with the dawn. The rain had petered out before nightfall, the only reason why Crowe had accepted the fact that Strife was sleeping out under open sky when there was a perfectly good bed that she would have given up, and so it was to a hazy dawn that Crowe read her texts and bit down on curses.

They’d just been assigned to the Stormborn yesterday, and now the captain wanted to recall them for muster?

“Might be a new mission,” Crowe said when when Nyx came skidding through the halls to knock on her tiny apartment door. She was tightening up the laces on her bracers, one-two-three. Then the boots next, slipping a few extra throwing knives in there that she usually went without. “New intel comes in all the time, Nyx. Don’t get too wound up about it.”

The Stormborn tagged along because who was going to tell him no? The Captain made him stay outside of the briefing room, but that was standard procedure. Operational security and all that.

Except it was a new mission for Crowe only, and Pelna was being rotated into what the Captain called the “Arbiter detail” – which, what? – and apparently, the king was making moves of accepting the peace treaty.

If this news had come before the Stormborn’s arrival yesterday, Libs would probably have been as chomping at the bit as some of the Glaives were. But the Stormborn of Galahd was here and everyone knew that, from Libertus to Nyx to the rest of the Glaives, and so Crowe stared them all down until they bit their tongues on their protests and looked away.

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” she told them when the Captain left for his office and the Glaives closed ranks around her. She clasped forearms with the Second of her mage squad, smiled wryly when he looked like he was chewing on lemons at the thought of her leaving alone. “In and out, no mess, no fuss. And hey, I get to be the hero for once, Nyx!”

“Don’t be too eager to follow in my footsteps,” was all Nyx said. She knew that look on him, but she still needed her briefing from the Captain. She couldn’t afford to stay and comfort him.

But gods, when she got out of that briefing she couldn’t help herself. She went straight to Nyx and uncaring of the fact that the Stormborn and Libs and the non-Galahdian Glaives were watching past the human shield that her brethren and clan-kin had made, reeled him in by the back of the neck to touch foreheads.

It spoke deeply of Nyx’s anxiety – for her, for the mission – that he let her.

“Take care of yourself,” Nyx was murmuring into her ear. Libs was on the other side, running her braid for family and brotherhood through his fingers.

The small box that the Captain had given her, straight from the king, weighed heavily in her pocket. “I’m a one-woman army,” she said, parroting the feedback the Captain had once written on her bi-monthly performance review.

“You’re still the baby,” Libs bit back, and tugged lightly on her braid. Some of the other Galahdian Glaives snickered, but they didn’t deny it. Force of nature on the field or not, Crowe was still the freaking youngest.

“She’ll be fine,” someone said, low voice familiar after spending an entire day tailing him. Crowe let Nyx go so that they could face the Stormborn properly, who had his arms folded across his chest. The Glaives parted to let him through and filled back in the gaps in his wake. “But a solo mission?”

“Usually we’re paired together,” Crowe told him, “but this one requires a bit more stealth.”

“You can run a stealth mission with two people,” Nyx muttered, and didn’t even flinch when she smacked him in the stomach.

Strife seemed contemplative, tilting his head. His eyes were still glowing softly, but he was looking around the room now, taking in the entirety of the Glaive currently at muster. The Galahdian Glaives in the center of the ranks around Crowe, but the Glaive as a unit were tight, close-knit; Pelna was standing shoulder to shoulder with Libertus now, lips pressed together and as unhappy about the situation as any Ulric.

He seemed to come to a decision, though, and dug through one of his many pockets to bring out a small pill organizer. Crowe was too confused to do more than blink when he pulled out a pair of earrings from a section labeled _Monday_ and pressed them into her hand. They looked like they were made of brass and blue stone, upside-down filigree teardrop, and she swore when she curled her fingers around the earrings and they stung her with remnant magic.

“Put those on. It’ll keep you safe,” was all Strife said. And Crowe, who had now lived as an adopted daughter of Galahd for almost a decade, believed him.

Strife asked for her phone number too, just before he left. “Just in case,” he said, but she knew that look in his eye. It was the same as the stare-down that Nyx and Libs and the Matriarch had always given her, when she was going somewhere where they couldn’t follow.

She gave it to him, and didn’t even comment on the weird glitching technology, or Cloud Strife’s name in her contacts flickering back and forth between Lucian Common and something that looked like Galahdian traditional script.

The Marshal was waiting at the Citadel doors as soon as Crowe shipped out and they saw her off. “Arbiter,” he grunted, which, what?

“Great, more titles,” Strife muttered. “What did you want, Leonis?”

“A spar.” Nyx choked on air, but the Marshal’s face was deadly serious. “You up for one?”

Strife watched the Marshal watching him, and damn, how was he doing that? Nyx had been under the stare of both the Crownsguard’s commander as well as the Stormborn’s before; it figured that it would take someone like the Immortal to be unintimidated by Strife’s stare.

“Because you want to see if I can walk the talk?” Strife snorted and grinned wryly, and it changed the planes of his face from something impassive into something more approachable.

Marshal Leonis just raised an eyebrow. “Because if you’re sticking around, Arbiter, the King would like to see if we can ask you for military favors on top of the work that the Fulgurian has called you to do.”

Excuse you Lucis, the Stormborn was _Galahdian_ and Galahdian he would remain by the grace of Ramuh. Nyx bit down on his tongue and ignored Pelna’s questions and Libs’s hushed answers.

But Strife was just shrugging and making a lead-on motion, so they had no choice but to follow the Marshal as they went deeper into the Citadel for the second time in as many days. At least he was leading them towards the Kingsglaive training grounds, not the Crownsguard.

“Better magical protections,” Marshal Leonis grunted when he caught Nyx looking. “Also, the Crownsguard rooms are booked all day for the new recruits, and the Glaive knows about the Arbiter already.”

Easiest to keep this entire thing compartmentalized, got it.

“Good thing I didn’t bring the Apocalypse,” Strife was saying as they squared off. Nyx nudged the baby Glaives back behind the spectator line and grabbed his brother by the elbow. “Woulda wrecked your sword otherwise. Any handicaps?”

Handicaps against the Immortal might have sounded like suicide, and certainly the newer Glaives who didn’t recognize the braids or the glowing eyes went pale as a sheet at the implied insult. Marshal Leonis just cracked his neck. “No handicaps. ’til first blood.”

Strife’s eyes went to the katana in the Immortal’s hand – his eyes narrowed, the glow brightened – before he pulled out his sword and held it in one hand, easy. “I’ll let you go first.”

Nyx knew that the Marshal was fast, but apparently the Stormborn’s reflexes were _faster_.

It looked like Strife relied on speed to make his hits. He was jumping and rolling, all coeurl’s pouncing grace, while in comparison the Marshal looked like a stalwart charging avalanche. It made sense, because even with his obvious physical strength and musculature it was doubtful that Strife would win in a contest of pure strength–

And then Strife got into a blade-lock with the Marshal and pushed him clean off his feet.

“Not bad,” Strife said when Cor got back up. “Unfortunately for you, you’re only human.”

“And what, you’re not?”

There was something more than bitter, less than anger twisting Strife’s lips when he said, “Something like that.”

“Alright then.” The Marshal shook out his wrist and took a stance with his sword again. His other hand was filled with fire.

Nyx did a double take, because right, shit, the Marshal had access to magic, the same as any Glaive as part of King Regis’s Retinue.

It didn’t seem to phase Strife, though. He just flicked his wrist and a blizzard howled through the room. The frost skittered across the floor and crossed over the spectator’s line, and Nyx had to grab a baby Glaive by the back of the shirt to pull him back in time.

“That all you got?” Strife called into the room, two hands on his single sword and stance easy as if the thing wasn’t Nyx’s own bodyweight in steel. There was actual emotion in his voice and its name was teasing. Nyx was going to have a heart attack, because really? The Stormborn? With the _Marshal_?

At least the Marshal didn’t seem any offended by it because he fucking raise-his-hand-to-Ramuh, honest-before-the-Lawkeeper _chuckled_. “I’m old, but not that old.”

Then they were back at it, except at speeds that blurred in Nyx’s mortal sight. Feeling the wind rush by he wondered who would win – Strife or Drautos – because the Captain had never sparred against the Marshal before, as far as he could remember, and if Cor the Immortal was evenly matched with a Stormborn who wasn’t out for blood then how did the Captain of the Kingsglaive compare?

Strife had just knocked the sword out of the Marshal’s hands with a neat cut across the bicep – thin, small, but still very much bloody – when someone’s phone buzzed.

The Marshal had straightened out of his last fighting stance and nodded to him, but Strife didn’t even seem to notice. He just holstered his sword and pulled out a rectangular device in one fluid movement. He was very much ignoring the amused Immortal and Nyx was going to say something about it, he was, except Strife was working his jaw at whatever was on the tiny screen and demanding, “Crowe? What is it?”

Crowe woke up choking. Distantly she heard something shatter like glass; when she turned her head, she saw what it was. One of the earrings that Cloud had given her knocked loose from her ears, the brass cage wrenched open. Even as she watched the blue bead in the center was cracking in half and dissolving into light; she could feel her other ear lightening as its match disappeared.

“What the fuck.” Crowe had felt that impact through to her bones, rattling her brain inside her skull. She should have a concussion right now, she should be _incapacitated_ right now, but no, she could move her fingers, she could move her toes.

She could throw her dagger in time to warp away from the gunshot aimed at her head and stab the bastard on reflex. He went down gurgling before Crowe could get a good look at the man beyond the bandana pulled up over the face, but she knew that fucking haircut, the crinkle at the corners of his eye when he smiled, the smug bastard.

Luche had just tried to kill her. Crowe knelt over the flailing body and dug her dagger in harder, pushed it past the body armor, iced the hands until they were stuck to the ground. It took a moment for the reality to sink in, but here she was, kneeling over a Kingsglaive that she’d bled with, drinked with, was prepared to die with.

“What the _fuck_ ,” she said to Luche’s wide and panicking eyes, and decided that no, she was not going to be dealing with this anymore. One of her daggers was stuck shallowly between Luche’s ribs and would stay there so that he could be interrogated before he bled out, but the other’s hilt served as a good night-night weapon.

Then she did the reasonable thing: she called the one person that she knew who could explain the goddamn earrings.

_“Cloud.”_ Crowe was gasping on speakerphone, and Nyx’s hands found his kukris without him thinking. _“Cloud, I’m sorry. I broke your earrings.”_

“It’s fine,” the Stormborn said. His arms were folded across his chest but he seemed looser now, the tension filtered out of him. “That means they worked. Good old Auto-Life. The fuck were you doing for you to almost die, Crowe?”

 _“Oh, is that what those were for?”_ Crowe giggled, high-pitched and adrenalin drunk, and that sobered Nyx faster than the news. Crowe did not giggle, she _cackled_. If she was giggling then something was very, very wrong. _“Nothing much. Luche just tried to kill me, no big deal.”_

“Luche?” Nyx lunged for the phone but Strife snatched it away before he could. It didn’t stop him from yelling. “Crowe, are you alright? Sitrep, come on.”

 _“Think I mighta bruised or cracked my ribs. I took a tumble off the bike. No biggie though, I can still continue the mission.”_ Crowe drew in a shaky breath. _“I just need a friendly pickup for this fucker, and then I can take off.”_

“Where are you?” Strife was walking away now towards the training hall doors. His cadence was familiar – military sharp. Nyx followed on his heels and was only distantly, mildly surprised that the Marshal was following. He was too distracted, too worried to really be surprised. “I’ll take Fenrir out, I’ll be there in fifteen.”

_“Through midday traffic? I’ll be impressed if you can get here that fast. ‘m just outside the Wall.”_

“Oh believe me, I’ll make it.” The steadiness of Strife’s voice was something to hold onto, even as they power-walked through the hallways, took winding turns until they burst out onto the courtyard that Strife had parked his motorbike at. It gleamed in the sun, Royal black and causing the Crownsguard on duty to gape, but he ignored them all. “Just stay put, Crowe, and don’t hang up.”

“You’ll return here with the prisoner,” the Marshal said as Strife tucked away his phone and mounted his bike. He was standing at parade-rest, no sign of the spar on his face or clothing save for the sweat dripping down the back of his neck and his damp hair. Damn if Nyx wasn’t jealous for that sheer ease and outward nonchalance right now.

But the Marshal had the tick at the corner of his eye which meant that he was pissed, and the obvious displeasure of hearing that Crowe had been attacked by one of the Glaive, one of their own, was the only thing that kept Nyx from snarling.

“Yeah, yeah. You can do the interrogation and investigation for me, that’s not my forte,” Strife grunted, and with a roar of the bike he was gone. Taking off for Crowe.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Nyx said into the dust, and was sort of surprised when the Marshal didn’t chide him for language, only grunted again.

Fifteen minutes there, five or ten minutes to pickup depending on if Crowe needed help and how fast Strife could give it. With the Stormborn’s healing magic it would probably be less than five minutes, maybe ten on the outside. Crowe might need soothing though–

“Easy, Ulric.” The Marshal put his hand on Nyx’s shoulder, and he breathed in sharply. “Altius is strong. She’ll be fine.”

“She’s a one-woman army,” Nyx quoted, and tried not to choke on the anxiety gripping his lungs.

Altius had been right, even in her slapdash on-the-spot identification. It was Kingsglaive Luche Lazarus that Strife brought in, hog-tied and tossed over the back of his bike like he was a package.

Kingsglaive no more, Cor supposed. He took the back hallways to get Lazarus from the Citadel side entrance they’d been waiting at for thirty-seven minutes, but people talked and Ulric and Ostium’s anger were quite obvious.

Drautos came marching down to the cells as soon as Cor had secured Lazarus, his face stormy, gritting his teeth. Ulric still looked fit to spit nails, even in the presence of his captain.

“A traitor,” he snarled, even as Cor stepped aside to brief Titus on the situation. “Goddamn it Luche, why? We fucking trusted you!”

Cor had worked with Titus through enough long hours and sleepless nights to recognize the twist to the side of his mouth. Half grimace, half baring of teeth, he was as angry as Cor had ever seen him. “Altius knocked him out,” he finished, and watched the hands out of the corner of his eye. “He’s been unconscious since Strife brought him back.”

And what an entrance that had been. Cloud Strife had a distinctively military bearing, but more than that, he had presence. He moved like a man who was used to command, or if not command, then at least being listened to on the field without contest. With his level of skill he rivaled Regis at his most furious with the Ring of Lucii and his ancestor’s Arms. Even Cor had found himself hard-pressed not to fall in when Strife had stormed from the Glaive training rooms, tossing out directions over the phone like he was used to it.

The thing with the earrings, too – that was curious. Ostium had only said that Strife had given Altius a pair of earrings before her departure, when Cor had asked. But they had worked to keep her from death at least once, judging by the conversation.

And he was as fast as, if not faster, than Gilgamesh. Cor watched Strife watch Lazarus through the bar of the cell, rolled around Regis’s words in his head again, and made a decision.

Lazarus died in custody. The Crownsguard had guarded him in a Crownsguard cell, and yet not four hours after he had been arrested for attacking a fellow Kingsglaive and for attempted murder, he had a bullet between the eyes and the Crownsguard on duty had slit throats.

Monica was just as furious about it as him, if not more so. Cor stayed out of the way of his hyper-competent Second and prowled through the halls of the Citadel instead, a bemused Strife on his heels. Politicians and servants and courtiers alike moved out of the way, some literally throwing themselves out of the way, but his Crownsguard didn’t stop to salute. They had their orders.

And Cor had his, too. Apparently Regis was anticipating that the negotiations would be coming to a close today, which normally meant that Cor would be on hand in the room as a shiny political play, but no. Regis wanted him to ensure the city’s safety instead of that of the king, or even the Citadel.

He wondered if that would still be true once the report of this fiasco reached Regis’s ears, as soon as he was out of his sealed meeting with the negotiators. Probably. Hopefully. Cor had yet to give Regis a piece of his mind for that completely unreasonable request.

“Ah, the esteemed Marshal of the Crownsguard.”

Cor came to a stop and turned; Strife drew even with him and followed his gaze. “The Chancellor of Niflheim,” he replied, voice as dry as a desert. What Cor wouldn’t give to throw political immunity out the window so he could knife the man. But no, he was here as an envoy of Niflheim, which meant that Cor couldn’t declare him a suspicious entity and instill the fear of the Immortal into him. “Did you need something?”

But the Chancellor wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at Strife, who didn’t even come up to his shoulder. “And who might you be?” the man purred, slinking up to the two of them.

Strife proved once more that he had nerves of steel; he didn’t flinch or even move, not even when the Chancellor circled him like a voretooth looking for an opening. “Cloud Strife,” was all he said when the Chancellor had looped his way around.

“Hmmm.”

Cor did not like that tone of voice. “Can we help you, Chancellor?”

“Oh, don’t worry about little old me, Marshal.” There was a look in his eye that was normally for crazy people. “I’ll be perfectly fine. Perhaps I’ll be seeing you, hm?”

And then the man was gone, back into his entourage of Niflheim servants and MTs and whatever sycophants he’d surrounded himself with. It unsettled Cor that they had allowed MTs into the Citadel, even for peace talks, but Clarus and Regis both insisted that it was necessary to allow the Niffs their own security to respect the sanctity of the peace talks.

Hmm. Maybe Cor could sic Strife on Izunia. Regis would give him hell for it, but Strife was the Arbiter and a Messenger of the Six; what could Niflheim do against that?


	5. kingsglaive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud wants a nap. He gets a party and a very disappointing fight instead.

Usually Ignis had to urge Noctis to get out of bed. He couldn’t decide if it was a good sign or a bad sign that the Prince of Sleep, as Prompto had once deemed him, was awake and sitting up in bed when Ignis let himself in to draw the curtains.

Though perhaps the journal in his lap was the real reason. “Luna wrote back,” Noctis told him without prompting. He was smiling slightly, in the way that only Lady Lunafreya brought out in him; the ones for Prompto was brighter, wider.

“Oh?” Ignis floated the response and leaned his shoulder against the window. “What did she say?”

“She’s looking forward to Altissia.” The smile on Noct’s lips wasn’t the important one, really; the depth of his emotion was in the eyes. Ignis was half-convinced it was because of the magic of the Lucis Caelums that Noct and his father were both most expressive with their eyes.

Ignis gave Noct a few extra minutes to write to Lady Lunafreya again while he got breakfast ready. In spite of this, it was hard to get his charge and friend dressed and out the door. He rolled around several potential explanations in his head, discarded them just as easily, but the truth of the matter was staring them in the face.

Gladio fell in step with them as they left Noct’s rooms and were off to the throne room, Prompto full of cheer at his side, though it fell away when they saw Noct’s face. There was a veritable storm cloud above Noct’s head, though thankfully it yet remained metaphorical instead of literal. Gladio looked at the back of Noct’s still sleep-mussed hair, then at Ignis.

He shook his head and dug up a smile from somewhere for Prompto, and kept walking.

They met a blond-haired man in the hallway, flanked by one of the Glaives. Gladio stepped forward to half-cover Noct, seeing the greatsword slung over the stranger’s back as soon as Ignis had, but Ignis managed to grab his wrist before he could do anything more ridiculous.

Noctis didn’t seem to notice. He blurted out, “You look like Prom.” He was too surprised to be embarrassed by the faux pas.

Ignis shoved down the urge to face palm. They were set to leave today, and if the Pilgrimage schedule that Ignis had painstakingly put together was going to be thrown awry because the Prince of Lucis could not keep a civil tongue in front of a Messenger of an Astral no matter that indeed he looked Niff enough to be related to Prompto, Ignis was going to do…something. Perhaps dastardly. To Noctis’s favorite video games.

Thank the Six, the Messenger ignored Noct’s lapse in propriety to raise eyebrows at the Kingsglaive. “Prince Noctis,” he said, and saluted. Ah, right. Nyx Ulric, the hero of the Kingsglaive.

“Oh, so you’re the one Bahamut was so fussy about.”

Ignis was the Advisor and he had been court-trained since he could walk. A chill still ran down his spine and he ached to summon his daggers from the Armiger. “What?” someone said, and that was Gladio, sensitive as ever to anything that could be a threat to his charge.

“Messenger Strife,” Ignis said before the situation could devolve. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Ignis Scientia, Adviser to His Highness the Prince. May I ask what you meant by Bahamut?”

The Arbiter snorted. “The old sack of knives had an entire prophecy shindig for you, little prince. Not that it matters any more, ‘cause Ramuh wanted that thrown out the window, and after talking with Bahamut? I’m inclined to agree with him.”

…what.

“Aaand with that, Your Highness, Retinue et cetera, I think it’s time we take our leave.” Glaive Ulric was doing a commendable job keeping a professional face, but Ignis could read the tension in his spine and the too-straight way he stood at parade rest. “We have an appointment with the Council that we’re already late for.”

“More old men to yell at, sign me up,” the Arbiter sighed, and turned away without even a by-your-leave.

“ _Messenger_?” Gladio asked as soon as the Arbiter and Glaive Ulric had turned the corner, because he wasn’t a brute who had never received court lessons. Ignis could still practically feel the coming headache.

At least it was a distraction from the way that Noct had been tense and wound up at having to meet his father in the throne room like they weren’t related, merely King and Heir.

The Chancellor of Niflheim running into Arbiter Strife in the halls of the Citadel killed any plans to keep the latter’s presence a secret. Privately Cor thought to himself _good riddance_ , but Regis was weirdly unnerved by it. Probably something about not wanting to upset the patron Astral that had brought the Arbiter to them and set this entire bewildering thing in motion.

Clarus was on his side, though, and thus they were able to spin the presence and the actions of the Arbiter for the Council. The traitor of the Kingsglaive and the subsequent assassinations of the Crownsguard ruffled feathers and stoked the patriotic fire, but they were soothed from immediate action by Kingsglaive Altius’s presence in Tenebrae.

This was the most he could do. Cor had bit his tongue when Regis had come out onto the steps with Noctis, getting one last moment with him before he left. Noctis had brushed off his father as usual; teenage angst, Regis had said wryly once, but there had been a world of pain in it.

And yet the Arbiter stood in the Citadel still, pacified enough to delay his Astral-given task to aid them in this. He’d been weirdly suspicious of the Chancellor, which meant that something else was up.

At least Drautos had listened to Cor when he’d asked for double the regular number of Glaives on duty at the party. Small mercies, but Cor would take them until he could return to Lucis and smack his oh-so-great King and very-smart-not-at-all-dumb friend upside the fucking _head_.

They were having their prince leave the city today. Cloud thought that might not be a good idea when everything Reeve had ever taught him about politics said that the heir to a conglomerate (or a kingdom in this case, like Yuffie had been with Wutai) disappearing on the eve to a _peace treaty_ was maybe disrespectful, and also weird when the peace treaty hinged on the marriage.

But whatever, not his problem.

That scene on the steps that he saw through the windows reminded him of Denzel back when the kid had reached his teen years, all huff and puff and angst. Damn did Cloud not envy Regis that.

It was easier to feel bad for the man when Cloud had seen the group of idiots that called themselves a Council that he had to deal with. At the end of it Cloud had sighed and swung his sword from his holster to set it against the floor, point-down. It had shut them up fast enough, though Amicitia had still looked queasy letting him walk around with a naked blade.

“Leonis asked me for a favor,” he said, and snorted at the startled faces that he got in return. At least Regis looked more amused than perturbed – it was always easiest to leave the soothing ruffled feathers bit to the head honcho when Cloud bashed in heads if said head honcho liked him. “So I’m gonna fulfill it. After that I’ll be out of your hair, so don’t sweat it.”

He needed to take the Galahdians back to Galahd but Crowe had been fearful and yet determined, Nyx was worrying but pulling himself together, Libertus was keeping his temper under wraps so that he didn’t bring censure on his kinsmen’s heads. They were trying their best and damn if Cloud didn’t want to let them.

So. Accepting this ridiculous request for a favor from Leonis it was. Which was why Cloud was skulking around on the fringes of this ridiculous party late at night, watching the Niflheim people watch the Lucians and all of them watch him when they thought he wasn’t looking. At least they gave him a wide berth and didn’t come near, leaving him alone.

Scanning the crowd had him catching Nyx’s gaze from where he was stationed in one of the corners. He made that startled chocobo in the headlights face again before he caught himself; Cloud snorted and kept looking. The Kingsglaive were spread throughout the crowd tonight in prime tactical spots to attack and defend, and there were more of them than Cloud had expected to see. But then again they weren’t Turks – there didn’t even seem to be an equivalent of Turks here, which was nice – more like SOLDIER, really.

Except minus the ‘let’s use the thing that keeps the Planet alive to make you into a super soldier.’ No, according to the Glaives and Ramuh, they were just using the king’s magic and which powered the shiny big Barrier stretching overhead, all at the cost of the king’s life.

Cloud could respect that kind of dedication.

The Niflheim Chancellor was suspicious as hell all swanning around in this fancy party. His dramatics reminded him too much of a weird mix of Rufus Shinra and his political maneuvers with Sephiroth when he was particularly off his rocker. Cloud watched him make his circuit and whisper to the Emperor of Niflheim and his ridiculous white bathrobe thing, and snorted.

The armored man with the sword launching upwards, blade-first at Regis, was almost a welcome distraction. Cloud tracked the movement by the glint of the low party lights on armor and sighed when the Kingsglaive were more startled than reactionary. He braced his knees and leapt, used a nearby man in very Turkish clothing as a springboard, and swung himself feet-first at the partycrasher to slam them both across the room and into a less crowded area.

When they tried to pin a level on him Cloud blew the machine. Idly, he wondered what the people here would register as. Forties? Fifties? Even Sephiroth had been in the upper seventies the first time around.

Cloud unholstered his sword to cast Assess and tilted his head. The intel feeding into his brain made him raise his eyebrow with every subsequent detail. “You’re an interesting one.”

The man in the armor didn’t answer, just raised his sword upright in front of him and pulled back to parallel with his shoulder. Vaguely Cloud could hear the shouting and evacuation and the spells flying around as people accused each other, but the highest leveled enemy in the room was in front of him right now.

He cast Barrier in dome-shape over the two of them almost as an afterthought. “Titus Drautos. A man who became disillusioned with the King of Lucis and his isolationist policies during the war with Niflheim.” Cloud skipped backwards to dodge the sword swings, his attention only half of on the man. “Titus Drautos’s secret identity is General Glauca.”

Someone was yelling bloody murder about the second betrayal in just about as many days. Vaguely he classified it as the stuck-up prick someone had told him was the King’s Shield. The closest Kingsglaive beyond his Barrier were too startled to do more than shift forward; Cloud could sympathize. Betrayal was always a bitch.

“Dead or unconscious?” Cloud called out as he jumped up and landed on the armored swordsman’s weapon. It was thinner than a Buster but sturdier than Leonis’s katana and didn’t bend even when Cloud crouched on it and stared into the helm. That was impressive. Still ugly as hell though.

“Unconscious,” Regis said, just as Amicitia spat out “Dead,” and well. Killing someone after the fact was better than casting Curaga to bring them back, and less annoying.

Druatos-Glauca swung an armored fist. Cloud ducked out of the way rather than deal with that and came up rolling to swipe at his kneecaps. He remembered at the last moment, at least, to turn the flat of the sword into the strike rather than the cutting edge of it.

“Lucky you,” Cloud told the man while he Staggered, and swung up his sword to let it rest on his shoulder. “You get a chance to defend yourself in court.” That was if Drautos-Glauca was lucky and if the Lucians were smart enough to keep a lid on the political meltdown by dragging this out into the light instead of hiding it. Either way, it wasn’t Cloud’s problem.

Drautos-Glauca took his sword and angled upwards as he lunged, most likely trying to get a gut strike. Cloud snorted and side-stepped it – god, everyone here was so _slow_ – and took the handle of his sword to the man’s temple. He crumpled over with a satisfying slump, even with that weird helmet. Too easy. Assess told him why – Drautos-Glauca was in the fifties. No wonder he’d seemed slow.

“What is the meaning of this?” someone said, all demanding like Yuffie at her most princess haughtiness. Cloud ignored the ruckus to grab Drautos-Glauca by the back of the neck and haul him over his shoulder. He let the fusion sword hang loose and easy in his other hand as he took down the Barrier.

The Niflheim people in their conveniently color-coded white blanched. Cloud snorted again and turned away to find someone to take the second Glaive traitor off his hands.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Nyx was saying when Cloud found another Galahdian Glaive and his friends who actually had handcuffs. They at least believed him immediately when he relayed what Assess told him instead of standing around hurling accusations about framings like the Niflheim people or even some of the Lucians were doing.

“Eh, better than the parties we used to throw back in the day,” Cloud replied, and holstered his sword. “At least no one’s broken out the prosthetic guns yet. And god, with _Yuffie_?” He discreetly checked the room, but nope, no one had shuriken. “What’s happening?”

“The Chancellor claims General Glauca went rogue and that the Niffs would still like a peace treaty.” Nyx stared daggers into the back of Drautos-Glauca’s head up until they disappeared into the corridors of the Citadel, baring his teeth the entire time.

“So they’re throwing him under the bus.” Which made sense; if the peace treaty worked then it would bring several generation’s worth of war to an end. If only Shinra and Wutai had been as cooperative with each other. Still, something about this entire thing – the Emperor and his very white clothes, the Chancellor and his fucking ridiculous hat – seemed off.

Idly, Cloud cast Assess at the Chancellor too.

The results of it made him bite his tongue. God-fucking-damn-it. Really? Another self-sacrificing idiot? _Really_?

Forget about throwing Aerith’s Great Gospel at the epitome of corruption at first chance, Cloud was going to channel Vincent at his most dramatic and turn this into a _lesson_.

Amicitia, when Cloud finally made his way back over to the king and the bristly ring of Glaives, seemed tense enough to practically vibrate, all violence kept leashed by duty. God, didn’t these people ever tire at being angry all the time?

“I kept him alive for you,” Cloud pointed out before he could say anything, just in case the man had forgotten. “Can’t you wring more concessions out of ‘em for their renegade general before you sign the treaty?”

God, when had _Cloud_ turned into the political one? When he’d been the one filing the taxes and yelling at Rufus about how not to be a douchebag while re-establishing SHINRA as not a soul-sucking Gaia-killing company, probably.

At least Regis seemed to agree, if the grim smile that he gave Cloud was any indication. “Indeed. I imagine they will comply with us quite easily – the signing is in two days.”

Yuffie had rambled about this part once. “’s easier to get them signed and then kick them out before either of your sides change their minds, huh?” Cloud could sort of understand. Locking them into a contract when peace was so close you could taste it must be very tempting.

Either way, not his problem. He’d done this favor for Leonis; Cloud was going to go take a well-deserved nap. Not two days into the job and already he was tired of all the hassle; he deserved it.

The plan had been for General Glauca to test the Galahdians’s precious Stormborn. They had not expected the Stormborn to have omniscience, or at least truth-seeing abilities. Which was handy for someone whose patron was the Lawkeeper, Ardyn supposed, if perhaps too on the nose.

The Emperor and his whimpering dogs were all unsettled and seething in rage at Glauca jumping the gun of his own accord. Ardyn watched them all from beneath the brim of his hat. Ah, centuries past and yet the nature of men did not change. They were the ones caught on the back-foot, needing to render recompense for the actions of a man they were even now disavowing.

And wouldn’t that be quite a blow to dear General Glauca! Traitor to his country and traitor to his king, and even the winning side he’d placed his bets on would wash his hands of him and set him out to dry.

The champion of Ramuh was aptly named, however. There was a veritable storm brewing around him now, in politics and in magic. Even the precious Arbiter of the Rogue Queen’s times hadn’t made this many waves, though that might be because of the woman’s own temperament. She’d been aptly named, too, as was this newest Stormborn – Ardyn had to wonder. Did Ramuh pick them for their names? Lightning and Cloud were very much following the theme.

And of everything that Ardyn had seen of Arbiter Cloud Strife, Stormborn of Galahd, Hand of Judgement of Ramuh, pointed to the fact that he would not move to save Lucis. Unlike Bahamut, Ramuh cared too much of Galahd to let his little avatar stray from the path. There was a reason the wizened Fulgurian was Ardyn’s favorite of the Astrals, and that was because the lout knew, to borrow a phrase from the young ones, to stay in his lane.

Ah, not that it mattered. Niflheim had only ever been a means to an end. Here in the heart of Lucis – in the heart of their precious Citadel – he could feel the looming of the Crystal as clearly as if Bahamut’s slumbering form was settled in a courtyard beneath the sun. He was looking forward to the Draconian’s face when he realized that Ardyn had ruined the precious country he’d been the patron of.

Though, he was sure, the despair on _darling_ Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum’s face when the boy realized his father was dead was going to be sweeter.

“Cloud got adopted?”

“About time. Usually he’s the one adopting everyone.”

“Oh shush, he wasn’t that bad.”

“Aerith. Light of our life and absolute darling. Do you remember his hovering? The slightly creepy one because he never _said_ anything, just watched and tailed you and loomed over your shoulder when he thought he needed to make a point to whoever he decided was harassing you?”

“I’m pretty sure he learned that from Vincent, actually.”

“You cannot blame everything on me.”

“Considering you’re the one out of all of us who stayed with Cloud the longest, yes I can.”

“…tch.”

“You know I’m right.”

“Vincent, will you visit him for us?”

“What do you wish for me to tell him?”

“That Tifa and I say hello, and that we’re proud of him.”


	6. flash flood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Diamond Weapon makes an appearance and Cloud stretches his legs after his nap. Overall, it’s a very productive day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wherever you are, whatever your methods of coping: stay safe. Stay informed. And stay snazzy, you beautiful people who are indulging me in a silly crossover that has gotten way out of hand.
> 
> I have also fucked with the timeline because screw it I do what I want and sometimes that’s slowly roasting canon over a fire so that we can have dramatic shouting matches.

It was like being back in the small town of Nibelheim, if Nibelheim were a fire flask primed to explode. Cloud didn’t understand why it seemed like every single time, SHINRA or the king or whoever the hell was in charge of a country was hell-bent on antagonizing their marginalized folks. SHINRA could have avoided a lot of the frustrations brewing beneath the plate by providing healthcare and ensuring the quality of life of their citizens.

From the grumblings of the grandmothers, the King of Lucis could prevent rioting on his streets from his announcement that they would indeed take the proffered treaty from Niflheim by providing aid and working towards social equality and, oh, _ensuring healthcare_ for his citizens.

They didn’t seem to have Curaga here, though, just potions and hi-potions. Which was weird – you needed to make the potions somehow. Where was that coming from?

But anyway. Cloud had done that favor for Leonis. Niflheim still needed to go, or at least be gutted, because they were the ones utilizing the degradation for their own means like SHINRA had done.

He was spending the day in Little Galahd, minus his usual company of Kingsglaive due to the treaty signing security requirements, when the sky darkened. Not noticeably at first, as though a cloud had passed overhead, but something was rumbling. Not Ramuh’s thunder, and not his storm, considering he’d cleared up the skies for a sunny outdoor peace-treaty signing after a very nicely phrased and respectful request from the King of Lucis.

The young men and women that Cloud had been talking down from more violent demonstrations of their disagreement with the peace treaty – the Galahdians had some interesting and bullheaded friends for sure, not that Cloud blamed them; if peaceful protesting didn’t work then sometimes you just had to up the ante – looked up. They paled, down to the last person.

Cloud looked up. It was only a couple of airships. Wait, why were there airships here? Wasn’t the space around the city a restricted area or something? Cid had complained about that mightily whenever he needed to pick up somebody or drop them off.

The news station blaring in the corner that had been covering the treaty-signing today was distracted by the airships. Cloud folded his arms across his chest and watched. Something something Imperial assurance that the airships were there for security’s sake, considering one of their own had been so against the treaty that both Empire and kingdom wanted to go through.

“Smells like bullshit,” Cloud declared, and the kids snorted. One of the grandmothers who ran the town shook her head behind the bar, but at least she didn’t tell him off for language.

One of the airships was very large. It hovered overhead like a great metallic beast-like thing, and Cloud was left wondering how the engines or propulsion system of that thing wasn’t leaving their ears ringing – was the Barrier keeping out sound too, somehow? But it had rained just the other day – when it cracked open like a shell and the inside came pouring out.

“What the fuck,” the grandmother behind the bar said. Oh, so she was a cool grandmother then. That was nice to know; she seemed to be the one that had the largest brood of people, and whom Nyx Ulric respected the most. His own grandmother, or at least a relative then?

Whatever the hell it was that had come out of the airship, it was standing on top of the Barrier stretching over the city, the magic slowly cracking beneath its feet.

“Ah, that’s not good, is it,” Cloud mused. The treaty-signing on the television screen had devolved into accusations and violence; the king had staggered and the Kingsglaive were closing ranks. A little silly, considering the fact that the giant thing cracking the Barrier might be a bigger concern, but maybe they couldn’t see it? It looked like they were inside the Citadel.

NEED A LIFT? Ramuh asked, one eye peering through the mist that had shoved itself through the bar door and looking at Cloud, seeming to ignore the now-gawking Galahdians.

Cloud sighed. “Sure,” he said, and had just cast Time when Ramuh grabbed him and, Cloud standing on one palm like he had for the journey from Galahd to this fancy city, ducked out of the store and then threw him upwards.

It was faster this way, he told himself as the buildings grew tinier and he continued going up. The last time he needed to get up as high had been against what, the summon Bahamut? Tifa, Vincent, and everyone had helped him reach that altitude the last time, and sure he could jump up and start freerunning up the skyscrapers but that was effort and more importantly, that took time. This was faster. Ish.

He drew his sword as he approached the thing. Now that he was closer he could see what it was, and the shadow it made was distinctive. That was Diamond Weapon alright. It was weird that it was here, but Cloud had fought it before. The only tricky bit was going to be getting through the Barrier, since it was cracking but hadn’t quite fallen yet.

Man, if the king was holding up the Barrier even with the weight of the ‘Weapon pressing down on him, he must be absolutely devastating with materia. Or not; Cloud hadn’t seen anybody using materia yet, even when they threw around fire and lightning like they did. How did they manage the greater works then, if they didn’t use materia? Were things like Synergy and Prayer just lost then?

Time started again. He readied his sword. The Barrier had worse than hairline cracks – entire portions of it were flaking off and falling, only to disappear in a flurry of crystal before it hit anybody or anything on the way down. Cloud still had enough velocity going to hurtle through a quickly emerging hole and come up swinging.

Which he did. It had been a while since he’d had to fight Diamond Weapon, but not enough that he’d forgotten it was weak to lightning magic, nor to forget its attacking pattern.

Except there were two of them. No wonder the Barrier was falling so quickly. Ramuh had crossed his arms and was glaring at something, but there was no time for that. Cloud summoned Thunderaga to hand and, relying on Assess to correct his timing, hurled it at one of the Weapons.

The other one went down before he could turn to it. A familiar dark figure was on its back, Death Penalty leaning on his shoulder.

“Cloud,” Vincent called, on top of his Diamond Weapon carcass like he was one of those wild beast hunters that Nanaki liked to complain about. “Only you would get up to trouble like this.”

Cloud was starting to think the old man had purposefully dropped him off in the busiest three-day period of the fucking year. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll catch up after we fix this,” he responded, and swallowed down the hope and grief that wanted to catch in his throat. This was not the time, even if it had been literal years since he’d seen Vincent in the green glow of the Lifestream. “We need to kick these guys off the Barrier so they stop crackin’ it with their weight. Any ideas?”

Vincent did what he did best, which was think about it for a long moment before he shrugged. “Ash is much lighter than you’d think.”

Ah, reassuring Vincent. He was right though. Cloud ran a hand over his fusion sword, the materia in it glowing in time with the ones set into his bracelet, and then he called up Firaga.

When Cor came roaring back, a squad of apocalyptically angry Crownsguard and a terrifyingly quiet Monica on his heels, there were two gigantic mounds of ash that were being blown off the Wall over the Citadel, and the Arbiter was in deep conversation with a stranger that he had never seen.

The Arbiter was dusted everywhere with soot, his arms blackened and his face streaked. His companion seemed to have fared better, but he also was wearing a very dramatic outfit that looked straight to be out of one of Noctis and Prompto’s video games.

Not that Cor cared about the stranger right now, if the Arbiter was with him. Drautos – who was Glauca, and damn the man to the depths of Leviathan’s sea – was still locked up in holding, so it couldn’t have been him. They would need to answer the question of how, exactly, the Weapons had shown up but that could sit for a minute seeing as they were ash on the wind.

“That answers the Diamond Weapon question,” Cor said, and the Arbiter finished his conversation and turned. His eyes were glowing a very bright blue, brighter than they usually were, a remnant of the magic.

“Everything else secured?” he asked. The stranger shifted so that he was guarding Strife’s blind spot. The behavior was familiar; Cor saw it every day when Monica fell into step, did it himself when Regis needed the Marshal of the Crownsguard in public.

He pulled his attention back. “Yes. But the Chancellor is missing. The Emperor of Niflheim is claiming foul play and demanding that we release him.”

“But you Lucians didn’t take the Chancellor into custody.” The Arbiter sighed and cast a glance around. They were surrounded by what looked like a squad of Kingsglaive, all grim and furious down to the last man and woman. He had been kind enough to turn his truth-seeing abilities to verifying their loyalties and Cor believed the Kingsglaive that remained. He was only marginally more confident in his Crownsguard, because Monica ran a tight ship. “He’s in the Citadel still; I can sense it.”

“He smells like rot,” the stranger said. His expression didn’t change when Cor raised an eyebrow at him.

But Strife sighed like that meant something to him and crossed his arms over his chest. “That’d be the Geostigma. Did the old man tell you anything before he brought you here, Vincent?”

“I brought myself here,” Vincent replied. “Tifa and Aerith say hello, by the way.”

Cor didn’t recognize the first name, but he recognized the second. The woman with the ‘Great Gospel,’ whatever it was, that even Bahamut had acknowledged. And the hell was Geostigma?

And he could _smell_ the Chancellor?

“Of course they do,” Strife sighed, but his eyes were bright with more than just magic now. Cor had noticed this the last time, and it turned out to be a good hypothesis so far. You read the Arbiter’s moods off his eyes, not his face. “Anyway, if you can track him down then we can be done with this thing by today. Let’s mosey.”

And then Strife walked away, Vincent two steps back and one to the left. The Kingsglaive parted to let him pass, the Crownsguard followed hastily when Strife made no move to slow down his power walk, and then they were gone.

“Stay on him,” Cor said, and Ostium saluted – the rest of the Kingsglaive just a split second behind him – and took off to catch up. Monica was giving him one of her _looks_ again, but Cor had had a long day and he still hadn’t yelled at Regis for being foolish enough to post the Crownsguard in the city instead of the Citadel. Not that the treaty signing was going to go through, now that the Niflheim military had broken ranks and ordered an attack in the very city their Emperor was still in.

By the Six, the only good thing happening this week was that the Oracle had disappeared from Tenebrae, and a blond-haired girl with her dark-haired girlfriend was taking a road trip to Altissia. And maybe the ash on top of the Barrier. Cor was still on the fence about that one, though.

He could do without the airships overhead and the Empire apparently having a civil war as they scrambled to keep a lid on the sabotaged treaty signing, but things hadn’t devolved into actual war yet. And right now, Cor was going to take what he could get.

Now to make sure that the Citadel was actually secure before tracking down the Arbiter to wherever-the-fuck he went.

Cloud had made a lot of friends in the post-Gaia world. Vincent had expected that, honestly, because as recalcitrant as he was with his words and stubborn in his insistence that things were not his problem, Cloud eventually _made_ things his problem. Usually with his sword, sometimes by walking by and being too obvious a target for whatever the day’s big bad was.

Case in point, the way that he was walking without regard to the fact that he had what looked like a full contingent of soldiers with – yes – materia or at least access to magic on his heels like they reported to him. Really, it was getting a little ridiculous. But this was the man that Vincent himself followed, so he couldn’t be too hypocritical.

Cloud’s senses and Vincent’s nose led them to a room with heavy gilding, something like President Shinra would have preferred back during the company’s heyday if his tastes leaned toward austere and old rather than crisp and new.

Some of the people following them made tea-kettle noises. Cloud ignored them to bust open the doors and march in, Vincent following at his heels.

And okay, that was the biggest hunk of materia that he had ever seen. It was almost overshadowed by a ridiculously dressed man in fashionable rags and tatters with an equally ridiculous hat.

Cloud seemed to recognize him, if only by the way he settled in twenty paces from the man, crossing his arms over his chest. Vincent knew that stance, and he sighed and jerked his head to the maybe-SOLDIERS who were hovering just outside the large double doors. They scrambled to take position around the room, some of them summoning weapons, others utilizing more mundane methods to arm themselves. A mixture of materia and magic, then.

“Ah, so the Messenger returns,” the man said. Vincent activated Assess and not two seconds in, he was resisting the urge to sigh. Life imitated art imitating life, he supposed. It would certainly explain the costume that looked like something out of LOVELESS.

He went into a monologue worthy of LOVELESS, too. For the first time, Vincent was glad Tifa and the others weren’t here. Tifa would have slugged him in the face two words in; Barret would have shot him. Even usually calm Nanaki would have found some way to sneak into a blind spot and tear the man’s head off.

Eventually Cloud snapped and said, “We wrecked the fucking prophecy.” Because apparently that was what they were doing now.

The man in the truly deplorably hat went unnaturally still. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yeah it’s stupid, if it worked it’s because the universe has literally taken pity on you.”

Hat man sputtered. Eventually he recovered enough to draw himself up to his full height to tower over Cloud from across the room and snarl, “I will have my vengeance upon the Lucis Caelum!”

Cloud snorted, distinctively unimpressed in that way he always was. “What, the entire line, one hundred and some people’s kids later?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why?”

“Why _not_?”

This entire conversation wouldn’t have been out of place coming out of Denzel’s and Marlene’s mouths. Vincent rolled his eyes, just happening to check the ceiling. There were no balconies to hide in nor ledges to brace for an attack from above; pity.

“Is that the man speaking or the degradation speaking?”

Cloud had run out of patience, then. The man’s eyes flashed beneath his hat, dark and dangerous. “You know about the difference?”

“It’s almost like,” Vincent sighed, a headache building behind his eyes, “they forgot their own history.”

Next to him, he heard Cloud snort. Ah, at least that had never changed. “Yeah, that’s a thing that happens. History repeats itself because humans are fucking stupid and never learn.”

“That sounds like something Nanaki would say,” Vincent said, because it was. Cloud hadn’t been this bitter about the nature of humanity before, in all the times that he and Vincent had discussed it.

“He _did_ say it,” Cloud replied. “Word for word, would you believe it?”

“I believe it.” The man in the ridiculous hat seemed more than a little annoyed that they had begun to ignore him. He was…oh, dripping from the mouth with something black. Vincent could feel Chaos sitting up and taking notice, but he was intrigued, not interested. Not a demon, then. Just the degradation and the leftovers of Jenova, like the Assess had described.

The almost-probably-SOLDIERS who’d settled themselves throughout the room were getting pretty nervous, though. Vincent drifted forward so that he was standing next to Cloud instead of watching his back and settled a hand on Peacemaker.

“I would’ve said before, not my problem, but…” Cloud cracked his neck and threw his sword upwards, which split into six separate swords that hovered throughout the room. He wasn’t jumping up to begin Omnislash, though, just left them to gleam and shiver in the giant materia’s light. Oh, so this was how it was going to go.

Vincent glared at Cloud, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He just raised his hand, his bangle glimmering in the light of the materia, and summoned Ramuh.

The summon showed up, which was good. He appeared and sounded like he was chortling, which was interesting.

He also made it rain indoors hard and fast enough to flood the room with green-tinged rainwater, which made sense, and yet. Vincent sighed and resigned himself to standing on top of a high building somewhere so he could air-dry his clothing as quickly as possible. It was uncomfortable to be walking around in wet socks, and Cloud knew that.

“They adopted me,” the man was saying over the smoking ruins of the Geostigma that had possessed Ardyn Lucis Caelum. “They made it my problem.”

“Please don’t tell me you took this from a LOVELESS scene,” Vincent said after a long moment’s pause, because it didn’t seem like the poor men and women who’d been so ready for a fight had been ready to see Ramuh laughing his head off like he was doing now.

“Of course I didn’t.” That was a relief. And then Cloud had to ruin it by adding, “I took it from _you_ ,” and oh, that was it.

It wasn’t the most dignified thing in the world, chasing a rain-soaked short _chocobo man_ around the room trying to smack him with the butt of his gun, but Vincent couldn’t care less, even when the stern probably-General from earlier barged into the room to the sight of a soaking wet and confused former host of the Geostigma dripping holy water in custody of probably-SOLDIERS and the summon Ramuh smacking his cane on the floor in his glee.

“There’s the man,” Cloud said, and rolled his shoulders. He hadn’t needed to show off the fusion sword with the setup for Omnislash, but it was always good having a backup plan, and hacking something into very tiny pieces was a good solution when the traditional degradation purge didn’t work. “And then there’s the Geostigma.”

It had taken him years to come to terms; years of therapy, recovery and backsliding and growth and unwavering spite against the mess that the trauma made of him. Of staring the memory of Sephiroth in the eye and saying, over and over again, _It wasn’t entirely you. But it doesn’t absolve you._

It was the choice of a man to start on the road to hell, and it was the choice – the freedom – of those that he harmed to forgive him. Cloud had fought for his peace, for the worn-smooth edges of those years after the mako.

Leonis seemed unconvinced, even standing there in the light of the big hunk of rock that Bahamut had gone into hibernation in. He was doing an impressive job ignoring the fact that Ramuh and Bahamut were bickering right over his head. Nice, Cloud liked a man who knew where his priorities were. “So we’re just going to acquit him?”

“What? Hell no.” Cloud snorted and shook his head. Even he had done this song and dance enough to know the next step. “We’re taking him to court. Him and Druatos-Glauca and maybe Aldercapt, I haven’t decided yet.”

“Are you sure?” Vincent asked, because he was an asshole.

Cloud couldn’t resist. “Have you ever known me to make a mistake?”

“Honeybee Inn,” Vincent replied dryly, and oh, that was it. Cloud swung at his nose on instinct and scowled when Vincent just tilted his head to dodge.

“Just for that,” Cloud told Vincent’s smug non-expression, “we’re going to televise it.” He watched the annoyance fill Vincent’s eyes, because he was a secretive man and if Cloud was going to be in the middle of this nonsense then Vincent was going to be dragged into it with him or face the wrath of Tifa and Aerith and pretty much everybody, really. He did not have a choice, and the both of them knew it; Cloud smirked, just for him, when Vincent glared.

“Dear Bahamut,” Leonis muttered under his breath, probably on reflex since it seemed like people _prayed_ to the summons now, and if said summon were anyone else Cloud was sure he would have flipped the bird. As it was, Bahamut just sneered.

OH DON’T BE LIKE THAT, Ramuh said, still snickering. I TOLD YOU IT WOULD WORK.

MY WAY WOULD HAVE TOO, Bahamut insisted again, and his blade-wings dropped like a sulking chocobo’s would have. Ah, fuck.

“It really wouldn’t have,” Cloud pointed out, because he was right and Bahamut was an idiot if he was still insisting on this. But he had also done his part in raising up Denzel and Marlene, so he added, “Look, I get you wanted to try and solve this problem by yourself. But there’s no harm in asking for help, alright?”

Bahamut said nothing. But Ramuh snickered again and smacked his cane on the marble floor, the sound ringing in his ears. OH, THIS WILL BE THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY. I WILL SEE YOU IN COURT, ARDYN LUCIS CAELUM.

“That would explain the Arbiter nickname,” Vincent said, voice as dry as the desert, and Cloud smacked him in the ribs this time.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
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